Heart of Flesh
by jtav
Summary: [Verdant Wind] Byleth offers her hand to a defeated emperor. A delirious Edelgard accepts.
1. As Above, So Below

_A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. -Ezekiel 36:26 _

The ash rained down on Byleth. Smoke choked her breath and burned her nose. Worse, though, were the screams. Men and women, young and old, begging for mercy, as their village went up in flames. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Jeralt had only left her because the rebellion had been put down. Except the rebels had struck during the night and slaughtered her men. She'd found them mixed in with the villagers with no way to tell who was who.

Byeth never left a job unfinished.

"May eternal torment take you, demon!"

Demon. Byleth looked down at the soot covering her skin. Her throat and eyes burned and her chest felt heavy. Yes, a demon was what she was.

_You shouldn't be_, said a young girl's voice. _You can be better._

Byleth's head whipped around, looking for the madwoman who spoke of salvation, but the only sight was charred timber and billowing smoke.

* * *

Edelgard fell to her knees. Pain and cold slid over her. She reached blindly for Aymr and found only a broken wreck of a weapon, cleaved in two by a true Relic. The throne room stank of charred metal and blood. There were so many bodies. Imperial and Alliance soldiers. Dimitri's retainer lay in a crumpled heap next to the remains of a Demonic Beast. And Dorothea, her last, truest friend barely recognizable amid the rubble. Edelgard's eyes burned. She had lost, completely and utterly, her dream of a united Fódlan revealed to be one more impossible thing that she couldn't have. All that remained now was to face the end with some dignity and let the victors claim their prize.

Leather boots forced themselves into her field of vision. She didn't dare look up. Falling by Byleth's hand was a better end than she deserved. Before she had been crowned and the flames had burned everything away, she had been a little infatuated with the mercenary who had so bravely risked her life for a stranger. For a whole year, she had been allowed to be a normal girl going silly over a teacher. Her life ending at that same teacher's hands… well there was a symmetry to that. "I'm glad." She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable.

Nothing happened. Edelgard frowned. "If I must fall, let it be by your hand. End this war now. If you don't, it will only be senseless violence."

"And we are all tired of that." Byleth's voice was deeper than she remembered, rawer. Her footfalls thudded on the stone. "Look at me, Edelgard."

Edelgard's head rose as if yanked by an invisible rope. Byleth loomed over her, the Sword of the Creator in her hand and poised to whip out at any threat. Her eyes, those brilliant green, unearthly eyes, were unreadable. She held herself in a guard stance, leashed, coiled power that could have made the accomplishments of Nemesis seem but a trifle if she unleashed it. If only she had chosen to teach the Black Eagles, if only Edelgard had found the words to sway her despite that, if only she could have made that one childish dream come true. The one she had never been able to articulate when it had mattered.

There was no harm in it now. "I wanted to walk with you," she murmured.

Byleth's eyebrows knit together. A flicker of light kindled in her eyes. Her free hand reached for Edelgard's cheek, and Edelgard was too shocked to pull away. Her hands were warm even through her gloves as she wiped away a bit of blood. Edelgard's breath hitched. How long had it been since anyone had touched her so gently? She couldn't even remember. This had to be madness. Linhardt had once told her that people on the verge of death hallucinated departed loved ones or other pleasant fantasies to make their passing easier. Even now, the real Byleth was no doubt raising her blade.

The false Byleth held out her hand. "Walk with me now."

If this was some phantom offering her comfort in her last moments, then it was meaningless to refuse. She took the hand. The false Byleth pulled her to her feet. Lancing pain shot through Edelgard's legs and midsection as the world lurched sideways. This wasn't a hallucination. The same Byleth who had methodically dismantled her empire had offered her mercy. And Edelgard had accepted. Her knees buckled.

Byleth drew Edelgard to her side, holding her up. "I've got you."

Two figures picked their way through the corpses. Claude and Lysithea. Claude's armor was stained and ripped. His eyes wore the same pained expression that Edelgard had seen at Gronder as he surveyed the carnage. Lysithea's eyes flashed with barely suppressed fury. The tactician who hid his brilliance behind a smile and whose complete ignorance of how Fódlan worked allowed him to dream impossible dreams and the brilliant mage who had served as proof of concept for the torture Edelgard had endured. She wasn't sure what it meant that they of all people should see her like this, but either way Edelgard was too weak to fight back.

Claude saw them and broke into a sprint. "Teach? I've got to admit that I was a little nervous when the throne room doors closed behind you, but you've rewarded my faith in you once again." He looked at Edelgard, and a smile played at the edge of his lips. "Judging by the lack of battle and the very much alive emperor who has her arms around you, I'd say you've done at least five impossible things today. I'm glad we could save at least one more person."

"It's over?" Lysithea asked. "Edelgard, do you surrender?"

Surrender. She had sworn that she would rather die than give up her ambitions. Her gaze lingered on Dorothea's remains. So many people had died for her dreams of a better world. It felt disrespectful not to join them. The best she could hope for was a gilded cage, if she wasn't put on the headsman's block as a warning to any who would dare to challenge the power of the Goddess.

There was a crash and the shouts of soldiers. The main body of the Alliance forces pounded on the palace gates. Claude raised an eyebrow. "I know we've had our differences, but I don't think any of us want you here right now."

Edelgard nodded. A gilded cage or clean execution was vastly preferable to what she would endure from enemy soldiers who found her in this state. But the only way out...the Goddess was a lie, but it seemed the flames of eternal torment were very real. "There's a hidden switch on the back of the throne. The tunnel below will lead us outside of Enbarr."

Claude did as she asked and the throne slid away to reveal a trapdoor and stairs leading into the darkness. The stench of stale air wafted from the dungeon and a blind, stabbing panic shot through Edelgard as she stiffened in Byleth's grasp. She was a child again and the knives were cutting and her sister was screaming and Solon was laughing...

Byleth gripped her more tightly. "What's down there?"

"A prison. A laboratory." Bile burned her throat. "The one place I hoped I would never have to return to."

"What a wonderful way to describe our only escape route." Claude reached for something in the folds of his robes: a glass sphere no larger than his palm. It shown with a brilliant white light. "I have to hand it to you, Lysithea. These portable torches are going to come in handy. On we go."

Edelgard was limp as Byleth half-dragged, half carried her down the stairs. The domain of those who slithered in the dark was much as she had dreamed of for the last decade. A stone tunnel ran in both directions with heavy doors made from a strange metal placed at irregular intervals. The walls were slick with mold, and Edelgard imagined the stench of her sibling's corpses still haunted this place. She forced herself to look. If she closed her eyes now, she would start to hear the screams, and it would have been better for her to have perished above.

"This does not look like your typical Imperial prison." Claude shone the light at the door. Edelgard could have told them that the metal swallowed rather than reflected light. He took a half step back. "And this is not your typical prison door. The Empire didn't build this place, did it? And the doors here don't all lead to cells?"

"No." She could push on. She would. She had survived too much and done too much to escape to die down here now. She strained to hear Byleth's even breathing, the swish of Lysithea's cloak, anything to remind her of the world beyond the darkness.

_The knife cut into her and the mage with the long robes and strange tattoos laughed. "Who would have guessed Ionius' bastard would have such a strong constitution. We may have to use you instead of the crown prince."_

It wasn't real. It wasn't real. Solon was dead.

A rat squeaked. Not close by, but it was enough.

_There were rats everywhere. Squeaking, gnawing at the hard bread her jailers gave her, looking at her with their beady eyes as if she might be their next meal. Edelgard shivered in the dark. Hans had died last night. Maybe they had given him to the rats. She was the last one left. One darted closer, scurried over her leg, and bit. She was going to die here, too._

The rat's teeth bit into Edelgard's leg and she screamed. Her legs gave way. She was going to die here too, the rats were going to eat her alive. Hard hands gripped her shoulders and a man said something. One of her jailers. Edelgard screamed again and thrashed. She couldn't let them take her. There was something...a friend had given her something to protect herself. She yanked herself away and groped at her belt. The daggar slid into her hand. She wouldn't let Thales or Solon hurt her ever again.

A different stronger hand checked her shoulder. "Edelgard," said a woman's voice. "Shh. We won't hurt you. You're safe."

Edelgard blinked. She was beneath the palace, but not in her cell. Byleth, Lysithea, and Claude stared at her. Byleth held her with one hand and took the dagger from her unresisting grip with the other. Edelgard's face burned. It had been years since she had thought she was somewhere that she wasn't, but she had broken in front of her new captors. She had pulled a knife on them. All reason and sense would demand that they strike her down for their own safety, but they only looked at her with soft, pitying faces.

"Leave me." She tried to snarl, but it came out as a plaintive whine. "A mad emperor is of no use to you."

"No." Lysithea spoke with more force than Edelgard would have given her credit for. "No one deserves to be left in the cold and the dark. You remind me of…Edelgard, you have white hair." Spasms overtook her. "No," she whispered. "I was only one. Can we hurry? I don't want to be here anymore."

"I can make sure Edelgard gets out," Byleth said. "If Rhea is in Enbarr, then she's nearby. Find her."

"You sure you'll be okay down here alone, Teach?" Claude shook his head. "If you're not at the command post in one hour, I am coming back with a search party."

Byleth's lips twitched, and she sheathed the dagger in her own belt. "Deal."

Edelgard lay on the stone floor, panting, as Claude and Lysithea disappeared into the darkness. Tears threatened at the corner of her eyes, and her breath came in dry heaves. She wished they would leave her. She felt three-quarters dead already, wounded by blade and arrow and magic, her limits revealed for her enemies to see. For Byleth to see.

Byleth knelt next to her. "Can you stand?"

"I don't think so."

Byleth muttered something under her breath in a language that Edelgard didn't know, and her hands glowed with golden light. She passed them once, twice, over the length of Edelgard's body. The pain receded into a dull ache, and her breathing became slow and even. She felt light and fuzzy-headed, as if she were standing outside her body and controlling it like a marionette. She tried standing and braced herself against the stone. She didn't fall.

Whatever Byleth had done left her pale and sweaty. Her hair plastered against her scalp. Even in her haze, Edelgard frowned. "You're going to a lot of trouble for someone who tried to kill you half an hour ago."

"There's been enough death in this war." Her lips thinned and there was something in her eyes that Edelgard couldn't read in the darkness. "You of all people I wanted to save. Come. The spell won't last long."

She took Edelgard by the hand and led her through the tunnel. Edelgard's feet carried her forward and up towards the light. Byleth didn't speak again, but her breath grew harsher as they went on as if she were carrying a great weight on her back. Some part of Edelgard realized that this was odd, that she was supposed to be dead, supposed to be curled into a corner as madness overtook her, but every time she tried to think about it, the pleasant haze in her mind grew stronger.

At last, they exited the tunnel. They were a little ways outside the city, on a hill where her father had often taken Edelgard when she was young. The air was sweet, and birdsong filled her ears. The magic keeping her upright ebbed away until she fell against Byleth. Byleth cradled her as if she were a child, and Edelgard lacked the strength to even protest. Byleth smoothed her hair. Edelgard sighed. Maybe this was a hallucination too, a fantasy of being saved and held by her old infatuation cooked up by a fevered mind in the moments before a sword bisected her skull. But if it was, it was still the closest she had been to happy in five years.

Byleth smoothed her hair. "Sleep now. We'll talk later."

The last thing Edelgard saw before exhaustion claimed her was the Crest of Flames banner fluttering over Enbarr.


	2. Flame and Ash

The Soaring Eagle was the finest inn in Enbarr, more accustomed to nobles and their retinues than conquering armies. Claude had taken over the common room and repurposed it as his command post Maps were spread out over the long tables, the known positions of the remaining Imperial forces marked, crossed out, and marked again with each new scouting report. Claude himself was bent over the most recent of them, conferring with one of the Almyran commanders Nader had left behind. Byleth blinked. Sometimes, the last six months felt like a dream. She would wake up and Claude would be her star pupil who told people not to trust him with a smile so easy that they trusted him anyway. This man was tall with lean muscle from years of mounted warfare and the hard, sad eyes of a general who had ordered comrades to their deaths too many times. He still schemed, but now his vision of a world without borders was a concrete thing that Byleth could fight and die for.

"You don't have to remind me how things work east of the Throat." There was a low, dangerous note beneath his smooth voice. "But I'd like to spend the next decade doing something besides putting down rebellions. If any of the men start looting or if they kill civilians or soldiers who have surrendered, hang them. Understood?"

"Understood. As much as we deserve a prize for our fine showing today..."

"Well, as it happens, I'm looking for something in the Imperial treasury. You can find something to calm your men from there. The Emperor's got to have lots of ill-gotten gold and jewels just sitting around. "

The commander's eyes glittered as he saluted and marched off. Byleth wondered if she was the only one who noticed Claude letting out a long, slow breath. "Have you slept? At all?"

He smiled, but it was smile he had given her when they first met, the one that didn't reach his eyes. "You know how it is. No rest for the wicked. And you don't look like you've slept either."

"Too many patients." She had expected many things to change when she had been forced into an unlikely career as a teacher, but the strangest was that she had discovered a talent for something beyond the blade. Manuela had called her one of the most naturally gifted healers she had ever seen, and Byleth had thrown herself into learning everything she could about the art. Anything to wash off the stink of the Ashen Demon. This last, most terrible battle had left her with more chances to hone her skill than the entire year that she had been a professor. All but the top floor had been converted into a makeshift infirmary and she had spent Sothis-only-knew how long mending bones and closing gaping holes in the flesh and sometimes simply holding people's hands as they died. They had suffered from her. She could do no less.

The top floor contained only one patient, who had not stirred it all. Lysithea had insisted on taking charge of her personally, and Byleth had been all too glad to put off the confused jumble of emotions that Edelgard kicked up in her.

"Professor, I'm so happy to see you again. It must be the Goddess Herself who kept you safe these long years."

Byleth swallowed down the jolt of anxiety that thrummed in her chest. When she had realized how long she had slept, there were two people that she hoped and yet dreaded to see again. One was Edelgard. The other was Rhea. Five years of captivity had made the Archbishop no less beautiful, but also no less unearthly. Her pale skin was spotted with bruises and half-healed scars that spoke of cruel treatment. She was thinner than was healthy. And yet, her movements were almost too fluid. Every eye in the room trained on her as she passed. Her long hair fell about her shoulders, and without the headdress, she looked like a sad nymph come to seek consolation among the mortals. She was the closest thing to maternal warmth Byleth had ever known, even as her father, Claude, and good sense warned that powerful didn't take an interest in common mercenaries out of the kindness of their hearts. Byleth squinted. Her ears were mostly hidden by her hair, but the point of her ears was unmistakable to one who had spent so long dreaming of Sothis. And she could transform into a dragon.

Who was Rhea? Byleth had learned something like love during her year at the monastery and given part of her heart to Rhea, but there was still so much she didn't know about the woman who had given her a home.

She knelt before Rhea, as the library's etiquette books had instructed her was proper. Rhea's hands trembled almost imperceptibly as she fluffed Byleth's hair. Byleth fought the urge to lean into the warmth. "No, there's their need for formality. We are like family, you and I."

Byleth rose, and was very aware of the dozens of curious onlookers. She had so many questions and good and bad news to deliver, but none of what needed to be said could be said here.

It was Claude, as always, who came to her rescue. He sketched a curt bow. "I'm glad to see you up and about, Archbishop. There are questions I've waited years to ask you." He grimaced. "And something happened that you should hear about from me."

Rhea stiffened. Byleth knew the look on her face well. It was the same one that the wives and children of fallen Blade Breakers had worn in the moment between seeing Jeralt and hearing the news. They knew. They always knew. "Then we must speak somewhere more private."

Claude led them to what was normally the innkeeper's quarters, and now served as his private office and storeroom for anything too sensitive to be shared with the army at large. Hubert's letter lay open on the table. Claude showed Rhea to the only chair while he and Byleth took up positions in front of her. Byleth bit her lip. She had felt emotions more and more strongly since the night she had rescued Edelgard, Claude, and Dimitri, but she still wasn't very good with people. She wasn't sure how to tell Rhea that two people she loved were dead.

It was Rhea who spoke first. "I know the look of someone who bears news of death. Tell me."

Claude looked at Byleth and then back to Rhea. "We had to take Fort Merceus on the way here." His voice was gentle, his tone sincere in a way that was a knife to Byleth's heart. "There was a group mages working alongside Empire. They unleashed javelins of light that fell from the sky and destroyed the fort. That would have incinerated us too, if it weren't for Catherine and Cyril clearing the way." He bowed his head. "I'm sorry, but they didn't make it."

Byleth had lost count of the number of people she had seen break down crying since her return, but that made it no easier to witness. Rhea's sob echoed through the room until Byleth want to cover her ears. She was more pained animal than human as the tears rained down her face. "No. No no no." She covered her face with her hands. "Must those monsters take everything from me?"

"We'll leave you alone. The questions can wait a little while."

"No, you will not leave." She wiped her eyes, and Byleth gasped. They were red-rimmed, as she would have expected, but rage overpowered the grief in her face. She was a raging inferno that could have consumed all of Enbarr with merely the way she bared her teeth. That terrible gaze fixed on Byleth. "Professor, you must swear to me that they will die. I was tortured for years. They took everything that ever mattered to me."

She was supposed to give a hearty assent. Nothing suggested that the shadowy power that had stolen most of Lysithea's life and reduced Edelgard to screaming and whimpering were even capable of coexisting with decent people. But there was a difference between killing to protect and killing to satisfy some deranged notion of vengeance or honor. She had learned that among the ashes. "I don't even know what they are or where."

"That they are monsters who would defile everything the church holds sacred should be enough. But if you must know more… Javelins of light could only come from Agartha. They created a civilization full of technological marvels and thought they could raise their swords against the Goddess and destroy humanity. The Goddess destroyed them for their hubris, but there have always been shadows in the dark, puppet masters manipulating Fódlan to cause chaos and destroy the Children of the Goddess who they hate above all things." Her breath hitched. "They were supposed to be dead."

Realization dawned on Claude's face. "You're one of those Children of the Goddess, aren't you?"

Her laugh was bitter. "You always were far too clever for your own good. In the olden days, you would have been expelled from the Academy within a month. I am one of the last children. The war I told you of happened long before I was even born. I thought the Agarthans were as dead as my ancestors. You have my word on that."

So Rhea...wasn't human? Some part of Byleth must have known that. Even the most powerful magic couldn't transform someone from human into dragon. But still...there was something to that ridiculous propaganda Edelgard had spread? She wished she could sit down._ What are you? _she wanted to ask._ What am I?_ But she was already exhausted from the strain of the last forty-eight hours, so she directed the conversation to safer ground. She picked up the letter. "Marquess Vestra's last request was that we destroy these Agarthans, but the calculations he sent us were incomplete. The best we can determine is that the javelins came from somewhere to the east. Do you know anything that could narrow our search?"

"I wish I did. I would like nothing more than to rip them apart with my own hands." She coughed. "I'm afraid my years in confinement have not been kind to me."

"You need to rest." Claude sprang to her side and helped her to stand. "I don't think by a long shot that this is over, but you need to get your strength back."

"So kind." She chuckled, and for a moment Byleth was back in her private quarters drinking tea and listening to stories of Jeralt. But the warmth passed as soon as it came. "I will recover. I must. They must pay for what they have made me suffer and what they did to my ancestors in blood."

Byleth sank into the unoccupied chair as Claude escorted Rhea out. For so long she had thought rescuing Rhea and ending Edelgard's war was the end of her path. That was before Lysithea was . She was meant for simpler things. She was a weapon meant to be wielded, nothing more. Certainly not a revealer of secrets.

She gripped her knee and gritted her teeth. Those thoughts were poison. If she were only a weapon, she would not panic every time one of her former students charged into the fray. She wouldn't have spent so long in the makeshift infirmary or given a sliver of her own life force to keep Edelgard going. She would not have spared Edelgard at all. The Ashen Demon had died at Garreg Mach, and dead she would remain.

"I packed Rhea off to get some much-needed sleep." Claude returned and closed the door behind him. "There's no way she's telling us the whole truth, but I think were going to have to wear her down little by little. And we still have no idea where to find these Agarthans. I guess were going to have to ask Edelgard when she wakes up." He glanced down. "Rhea is not going to be happy that she's alive. Everyone is living for vengeance and no one is living for the future."

"We'll deal with Rhea when we have to. I don't regret that decision."

"Hey I'm with you. I've killed enough classmates to hunt my dreams for a lifetime. If we can sway the Emperor to our cause, that's a powerful symbol for a united Fódlan." His smile turned sly in a way that always had made Byleth want to hire a food taster for the other houses. "And of course it's always nice when you can save the girl that you had a crush on."

Heat spread across Byleth's cheeks. "I...that's not..."

"So you didn't spend the entire ball sighing over her and wishing she would ask you to dance? And you went to the Goddess Tower for some fresh air? And—"

"Has anyone ever told you that you are the most insufferable man in the world?" Byleth rubbed her temples. She had never had much interest in romance when she was a mercenary, regarding her comrade's trysts with more curiosity than anything else. Then a girl with silvery-white hair had come rushing through the undergrowth and Byleth's pulse, if not her heart, had thudded loudly enough to drown out the rest of the world. She had been willing to give her life for that feeling before she even knew the girl's name. Her time as a teacher had been hardly better. Every scrap of casual conversation seemed fraught with hidden importance. She had had only enough presence of mind to teach the house furthest away from the Black Eagles because otherwise her newfound feelings would have either driven her insane or made Seteth execute her for conduct unbecoming.

She loved her students, Claude most of all. She loved Rhea. Even an emperor couldn't create Demonic Beasts or stand by while her allies committed atrocities like Remire. But sometimes she would remember how sad Edelgard had looked when they had fought amongst the flames during the battle for the monastery and wonder if things could have been different. "I won't let my feelings jeopardize your dreams for a better world. They're my dreams too. But that infatuation was the first time I felt like a person."

"I know. Just be careful, all right? We're on my plan that's a backup to a backup to a backup, and I haven't worked out all the details yet."

Byleth allowed herself to smile. "I thought that was how you liked it, Master Tactician?"

"And, yet again, I must ask who came up with that name?"

"If you can tease me about my infatuations, then I can call you whatever I like."

"And to think I thought you were a sourpuss when we first met."

Her smile grew wider. They were in uncharted territory, but they had ended the war that had plagued the continent for five years and defeated the most powerful army the world had ever seen. She had her friends by her side. And, whatever the consequences, she had managed to spare Edelgard.

There was a single, sharp knock on the door. Ferdinand. He had mustered all of his considerable energy and confidence in helping to maintain order and reassuring the civilians that their lives and property were sacrosanct. He looked like he needed sleep more than Byleth and Claude combined. "Professor? There has been a difficulty."

So much for her brief optimism. "'Rioting in the streets' sort of difficulty or 'someone broke my favorite tea set' sort of difficulty?"

"You should know that I would never risk something so valuable to the chaos of battle. A few houses were destroyed during the fighting, and I remembered that the rooms here were very fine and that we weren't using all of them." The shadows under his eyes seemed to grow more pronounced. "I was attempting to ascertain their suitability as refugee shelters when I heard…well I thought I heard Edelgard."

She couldn't keep Edelgard a secret like a pet in the dormitories, but all the same she wished that she had been granted a moment to rest and take stock of her thoughts. "I was able to take her into custody, yes. She was gravely injured, as I'm sure you can imagine."

His eyebrows shot up. "She is alive? Truly? I thought I was going mad. That would explain the sounds that I heard and why Lysithea seemed almost dead on her feet. Of course, she will have to answer for her crimes but thank you, Professor. She was my rival but also my house leader. Thank you."

The knife twisted in Byleth's chest. His unguarded earnestness, someone thanking her for staying her hand, came closer to undoing her than anything since her awakening.

Ferdinand seemed oblivious. "I heard moans and thrashing. Such things...were not uncommon at school. She attacked Caspar once by accident when he tried to rouse her. Perhaps you might see if Lysithea needs assistance" She does look truly exhausted."

"I can finish up here, Teach. Go put Lysithea to bed."

Byleth nodded curtly and mounted the stairs to the top floor. Edelgard had dreams she couldn't be roused from. Her attack beneath the palace had been frenzied and so unlike her careful precision during the war. Her screams had made Byleth's blood run cold. She had seen such things before. Seasoned soldiers forced to relive their most terrible battles because of a smell or a sound. And given Edelgard's white hair, she could guess what battle the underground laboratory had forced her to relive.

She removed the dagger from her belt. It was well-made, the Kingdom's coat of arms embossed on the handle, but it was too small to be a weapon of war. Edelgard had drawn it against Kostas. Byleth had no idea how the Imperial Princess could have come by it. She had been Byleth's first infatuation and most dangerous enemy, but the last few days had proven that there were many things that she didn't know about Edelgard.

The door was ajar, and Byleth was able to creep in unseen. Lysithea busied herself measuring out a purple concoction. Glyphs hovered in the air, keeping a running count of Edelgard's breaths and heartbeat. Byleth let out a sigh of relief. They were normal for a sleeping, healthy person. Edelgard herself lay askew on the bed. Sweat dampened the sheets. Lysithea or someone had changed Edelgard out of her regalia and into a plain purple robe. She looked smaller, younger. Her hair flew out in every direction. She had thrown the covers back and weakly thrashed at irregular intervals.

"Tell Claude I'm fine," Lysithea said without looking up. "This isn't the worst infirmary duty I've ever had."

"She scared Ferdinand. How is she doing?"

"Well, the wounds you gave her would have killed a normal person three times over, so being able to get out of the palace was more impressive than I thought. Her injuries should heal perfectly in a few days."

"And the screaming he heard?"

"Believe it or not, it's a good sign. It means she might wake up soon." Her voice softened. "The worst thing you can do for someone in the grip of that kind of nightmare is wake them up, but I'll never get used to that screaming."

_Is that something you heard from your brothers or sisters or is it your own nightmares?_ "Get some sleep."

"I'm not a little kid who needs to be told her bedtime."

"No, you're one of the few people we have who can work healing magic. I won't have you dropping from exhaustion." She put a hand on Lysithea's shoulder. "I can watch over her for a little while. Rest."

Lysithea nodded. "If she wakes up, make sure that she drinks this. And Professor? I spent three months in a laboratory like that one. Promise me that Edelgard and I are their last victims." She disappeared down the hallway.

Byleth took her place in the chair at Edelgard's bedside. Edelgard's fists were clenched, her fingers drawn like an eagle's talons, her occasional flinches a dim echo of the terror beneath the palace. "I know it isn't easy," Byleth whispered, "but you need to wake up now. You've got friends waiting for you, and I... I think I'd like walking with you." Her hand hovered over Edelgard. "I won't pretend that you haven't done horrible things, but so have I. We can't hide in our nightmares forever."

She wasn't sure how long she sat there, but her eyes were heavy and it was almost nightfall when Edelgard woke. The emperor blinked rapidly in the fading light and tried to sit up. Her hand went for a dagger in a belt that wasn't there anymore. "Where am I?" Her voice was cracked from disuse. "Professor?"

"Yes, it's me. You're safe." She picked up the concoction. "Drink this. It'll help you feel better."

"So it wasn't a dream." Her face was a mask of stone. "I'm supposed to be dead. Why didn't you kill me?"

It was her anger and madness talking, but it was also a question Byleth was growing increasingly tired of answering. "Because I believe people are generally better off alive than dead. Including you. Now drink, Lady Edelgard."

Shock rendered Edelgard pliant enough that Byleth could hold her up and put the cup to her lips. She made a face as the concoction went down. "Ugh. Are you trying to poison me?" She coughed. "I saw Dorothea. Hubert, Petra...are they dead?"

There was no way to sugarcoat it. "Yes."

She didn't cry as Rhea had. It would have been easier if she had. Her eyes, already dull with illness, became like a dead woman's. "My friends. I'm sorry that I failed you." Her voice was flat. "And you? What do you plan to do with me if not kill me? Chop off my head as a warning to other blasphemers?"

"We can discuss it later. When you're healthy."

"Healthy?" Her breath rattled. "I've lost my empire, my dreams, and my friends all in one day. I don't think I'll ever be healthy again. Tell me now. It's better than dreading the unknown."

"It depends on you." Edelgard looked at her in pained disbelief, and for a brief moment Byleth wished that they had been teacher and student. Maybe then she would have had the right to take her hand and soothe her, the way she sometimes did for Marianne. "I would like for us to be allies. What do you know about the Agarthans?"

Edelgard tried and failed to sit up again. She trembled, but not from weakness. Rage, pure and unvarnished in a way that Byleth had never seen from her before. "If you escorting me under the palace wasn't a waking dream, then you know the important things. They are the monsters who made me what I am. They seek to destroy humanity. I planned to destroy them first."

"Do you know where I can find them?"

"If I knew that, I would have destroyed them long ago instead of taking their table scraps. Do you plan to destroy them now that you've destroyed me?"

And again, vengeance giving someone the strength to keep going. "I seek to free humanity from their influence."

She smiled weakly. "Ah, then our goals really weren't so different. At least I can die happy when you change your mind and kill me. I would like to sleep now."

There was little Byleth could do but nod. Keeping her eyes open was an increasingly losing battle. Maybe she could beg Marianne to take over the watch. Everything would seem better after a good night's slee—"

"Professor? A word?"

Byleth turned on the stairs to find Shamir emerging from the shadows, looking as if she had just come in from scouting. She had been all but a ghost since Fort Merceus, always busy scouting for them but never staying longer than necessary to deliver her reports. Perhaps that was the way she grieved, or perhaps Catherine and Cyril had been all that tethered her to their cause. "I saw Count Bergliez's men retreating. The Regent, Lord Ardunel, was spotted heading towards Hrym. It's possible he intends to continue the fighting."

Wonderful. Caspar had already lost almost everything fighting this war. She would have to have a word in private with him in the morning. "We didn't expect this would be easy."

"I saw something else after we occupied the palace." The barest hint of anger crept into her voice. "You cradling an unconscious emperor. As long as she lives, she's a potential rallying point. I recommend eliminating her."

"No."

She raised an eyebrow. "I thought the Ashen Demon would have agreed with me."

Byleth's own anger rose to meet her. "Don't call me that. And as long as Edelgard doesn't act against us, she's under my protection. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly. Just don't expect me to die for you when your mercy backfires."

Byleth stormed toward her room. When Sothis had merged with her, she had seized her new role less out of piety than the hope that it would allow her to put her past behind her. She was a physician now, a woman who would do everything she could to see Claude's dreams of a world without borders where knowledge reigned supreme. She would like to live in that world, to put her sword down. She closed her eyes. And she wanted to be right about Edelgard. If she could prove an ally, there was hope for anyone in this world and maybe the mercenary that Byleth had been could finally die.

Maybe then her own nightmares of flame and ash would stop.


	3. Old Wounds and New Allies

It was hot, even for the Blue Sea Moon, and for what must have been the hundredth time since they had set out for Garreg Mach, Edelgard wondered what Grand Emperor Wilhelm had been thinking when he had designed Imperial regalia this heavy. Even Caspar and Ferdinand were sweaty. Only Byleth seemed unbothered by the weather, and Edelgard was half-convinced that she was either insane or from another world entirely.

The birds sang as sweetly here as they had in Enbarr, and the flowers and trees were a riot of color despite the heat. There were only the five of them since the main body of the allied army had been sent on ahead a week prior, and if not for the way Caspar and Ferdinand kept staring at her while fingering their swords, they might have been former students heading to a reunion. They hadn't even shackled her. The only sign that she was a captive from a conquered nation was that her tiara seemed to have gone missing. Probably in the hands of some looter, much joy may they have of it. Her companions barely spoke to her nor she to them, but she matched their leisurely pace without complaint. Her legs were grateful for the exercise after so long recovering. And, if she was a captive, she would be a captive with some dignity.

She looked at Byleth. It had been six years and a lifetime ago since they had first walked this road together, but she had barely changed at all. She seemed to pull Edelgard towards her as they walked. Not because she was beautiful. As emperor, Edelgard had been surrounded by beautiful people all too willing to share her bed if she had wished it. She was no longer capable of something as innocent as infatuation, but Byleth seemed to promise a return to a time she thought had passed her by forever. Sparing her, speaking as if her life had value beyond her need to overthrow the church. She was definitely mad. Edelgard had been submerged in favor of the Emperor for so long that she wasn't sure she could untangle them, or if she wanted to.

They exited the woods and Garreg Mach stood before her as if her invasion had never happened. A dull ache settled in Edelgard's chest. She didn't need more reminders of all she had lost by her failure. "Do they know we're coming?" _Am I going to be facing a company of Knights eager to kill me slowly?_

"Claude and Seteth will meet us. It's almost meal time, so most of the army will be in the dining hall. It's better if with work out the details of your stay in private."

The words were those like that Duke Aegir and Count Varley when they spoke of hostages, but Byleth's tone wasn't malice coated with honey. Why she went to such effort, not to extract information, but to treat Edelgard as a guest was a complete mystery. She hadn't known Byleth nearly as well as the Golden Deer must have but she had been completely without artifice during that year and Hubert's...Hubert's agents had uncovered nothing to suggest that had changed. Her kindness or friendliness or whatever it was left an ache in Edelgard's chest like an old wound.

Caspar's gaze flickered to Byleth. "What are we going to do with Edelgard, anyway? I mean, is she still emperor or are you in charge…can you make my father stop fighting?"

Edelgard stopped. "Count Bergliez hasn't surrendered?" She would always hate him for what he had done to her father, but like Hubert's father he had done it under the delusion that he was doing the right thing and not merely feeding his own ambition. They had been united in their desire to see a world free from the influence of the church. He was honorable. The Imperial Army had been decimated by the time she made her last stand. He could barely hold his own territory with what was left. Wasting his men out of pride was unlike him.

Ferdinand glared at her. "I do not think that is something we should discuss with you, under the circumstances."

Byleth ignored him. "I'm not sure who's in charge. Your father wouldn't listen to me or Claude, anyway. Would he listen to you?"

"He disowned me when I joined up with you."

Caspar looked like a kicked puppy. As if he weren't the one who committed treason. It had saved his life, but he had to expect consequences. If she had won the battle…she wouldn't be walking calmly beside him without so much as tying his hands behind his back. She wouldn't have ordered his execution without even looking up from her work. She couldn't get to the monastery quickly enough.

As promised, Claude and Seteth met them inside a deserted entrance hall. Claude looked every inch the lord with the best claim to Fódlan, the gilded threads of his jacket glinting in the light and his smile as charming as ever. Seteth hadn't changed at all, not so much as a new scar or different clothing. Then again, his kind lived far longer than humans. Maybe they changed more slowly as well. She met his icy gaze with her own. He must be furious with her for more than one reason, but she wouldn't cower and scrape to anyone in exchange for her life.

"Professor. You have my profound gratitude for rescuing Rhea. Profound enough that I have disregarded all protocol in meeting you here without her." His voice was as cold as his eyes. "You should not have brought her here. Do you realize what she's done to the church? What she intended for Fódlan? If something were to happen to Flayn because of your misguided mercy—"

"How, pray tell, is your sister in any danger? Aymr is destroyed. I have no army. I am surrounded by the Knights and Rhea's other toadies." True, all of it. As kind as Byleth had been, Edelgard was powerless here. The thought sharpened her words until they were like the dagger that had been confiscated. "I lost. More's the pity. Your control of the world is safe."

"My control of the world? You're the one who wanted to conquer Fódlan!"

Claude took a step forward. "Take it easy. We're all working together to defeat the Agarthans. The Empire and the church as we knew it are both gone, but what was good in those institutions can and will be preserved. If we work together. The only way we'll lead Fódlan to a new dawn is if we put our old hatreds aside." His smile never wavered.

The ache in her chest intensified. She had promised the soldiers who fought and died for her a new dawn, and the only way she would ever see a glimmer of it was if she didn't let impotent rage consume her. She forced her shoulders to loosen and her jaws to unclench.

Seteth exhaled. "It seems we have no choice but to be allies against a greater evil. I thought I was done with such compromise. Fate has a sense of humor. But you, Your Majesty, are a risk that this monastery had seen in five hundred years. Even if you're as harmless as you say, which I find difficulty believing, passions are running high. We must secure you for everyone's safety." He grimaced almost imperceptibly as if eating food he didn't like. "I recommend placing her beneath the knight's hall, at least for now.

Edelgard went suddenly cold. Prisoners awaiting trial or execution were kept down there. It was dark and the walls were rough stone like beneath the palace and there were probably rats and... Her muscles seized and she couldn't hide her shivers. Byleth's hand went to her shoulder. Edelgard tried to focus on the warmth and weight to keep herself in the present. She could not lose herself here in front of enemies eager for any advantage they could get.

"That's not necessary," Claude said. "Edelgard can have her old room back. All she would need is a bodyguard and to be locked in at night. I'm sure she would be most willing to accept those conditions. You'll cooperate won't you, Edelgard? Especially considering all the new mousers we adopted to keep the rats away."

His tone was as light as ever, but Edelgard understood. She could accept token restraint and cooperate or Claude would throw her in the dark and let her fears do the work for him. She bit back a curse. Show weakness and it would be exploited, no matter how kind your enemy was. She had no choice, and he knew it. "I consent."

"I suppose it will do. Rhea will not be—"

"I won't be what, Seteth?"

Rhea stood just inside the now-open doors to the reception hall, flanked by two soldiers Edelgard recognized as Dimitri's classmates. A blonde knight, her green cloak trailing behind her, stared at her in shock and anger while a man with freckles that made him look as if he should still be a student frowned and stepped forward as if to place himself between the two groups. Rhea herself shook. The color drained from her face, leaving the cuts and bruises the Agarthans had inflicted in sharper relief. Her eyes were like polished gems. A dragons eyes.

She roared and it was a dragons roar that made all of them tense. "You! What are you doing here? I will kill you myself for your heresy!"

"Archbishop..." Claude held up his hands.

Rhea didn't seem to hear. Her gait was unsteady, but she was doing her best to charge Edelgard. Time seemed to slow as Edelgard considered her options. She might be able to summon the energy for one blast of flame. She didn't know if it would affect a dragon, and the others would probably cut her down immediately, but a slim chance was better than none.

Byleth stepped in front of her. Her voice was different. It wormed its way into Edelgard's head and forced her to stand straight. "Rhea, stop."

Rhea froze as if by magic. "Stand aside, Professor. She is a disgrace to the Hresvelg line. I have endured countless tortures because of her."

"I would rather have ended your life cleanly, tyrant. It was the Agarthans who wanted you, not me."

"Well, then. I will grant you a clean death."

"Enough, both of you! Edelgard, if you antagonize Rhea again, I will lock you in the dormitories myself. Understood?"

"Yes, Professor," Edelgard muttered, feeling foolish despite her hatred.

"Rhea please." Byleth held out her hands. "I know what Edelgard has done. I'm not asking for you to forgive her, merely to tolerate her continued existence for my sake. That continued existence matters to me." Her hand went to the Sword of the Creator and it glowed red. "Immensely. Until and unless she breaks the terms of her parole, she is under my protection. Does not the Goddess offer mercy alongside torment?"

Edelgard forgot how to breathe. She was suddenly seventeen and facing down Kostas. Once more Byleth stood between her and death. She was more than capable of defending herself, but it was exhausting. Hubert had died for her, but he had died for his oath to serve her. Byleth owed her nothing, had every right to kill her. And still, the Sword of the Creator glowed. Its warmth and light flooded Edelgard. Childish dreams of clandestine kisses and waltzes danced across her mind. That part of her had died when her father had placed the crown on her head, but now it was stirring to life.

No. Oh no.

"You are just—no I have learned the danger of presumption." Rhea stepped back. "As you wish, Professor. I'm too weak to oppose you. But it's only a matter of time until she betrays you as she betrayed her family. I only pray that you do not pay the ultimate price."

"I'll risk it." She motioned towards the two soldiers. "Ingrid, could you see the Archbishop back to her room, please? Ashe, please take Edelgard to her old room. And do your best to keep people from gawking at her. I'd like the rest of our time together to be peaceful."

"Peaceful," Ingrid murmured. "She conquered Faerghus. How can it be peace to let her walk around like she's one of us?"

Rhea's eyes glowed in triumph, but Byleth's face softened. "Because right now, she isn't controlling Faerghus. And I'm hoping that letting her walk around like she's one of us means that we can free Faerghus from the people who do control it more quickly. And I'm hoping that it'll help stop another war like this one from ever happening again." She put a hand on Ingrid's shoulder, as she had for Edelgard. "It's compassion for the weak that makes a knight, not vengeance."

Ingrid closed her eyes. "No, it's honoring the oaths you swore. If you trust that this is the right thing, I'll do as you ask."

Edelgard felt the gazes on her as Ashe led her to the second-floor dormitories. Seteth, Rhea, Ingrid, they would all prefer her dead. She couldn't blame them. If it had been in her power, she would have slain the false gods. And Faerghus...so many of her memories had been stolen by the experiments, but brief flashes of Dimitri and Lambert suggested it might have been home as well as a prison. Cornelia could barely contain her cruelty at the best of times, and Edelgard tried not to think about what her rule was like. She had meant to depose her as soon as she no longer needed the Agarthans. That would never happen now, and Edelgard would go down in history as the Scourge of Faerghus.

_Can you blame them, Edie? _Dorothea's voice was so clear in her mind that Edelgard instinctively looked around for her._ You can't spend good intentions. It's a good thing you like red, with all the blood you spilled. Especially mine._

"Are you okay?" Ashe looked at her with what seemed to be genuine concern. "If you're still in pain, I know of some herbs you can take."

Edelgard shook her head. Enough people had seen her weakness. "That isn't necessary. You sound like you're from the Kingdom. Careful. It's treason to offer the Adrestian Emperor kindness."

He actually laughed, a warm, light sound that Edelgard hadn't heard in years. "It's never wrong to be kind. I don't know why you did what you did. I know that I did terrible things because I thought I didn't have a choice. Maybe it's the same for you? And I know that I owe Byleth my life, so if my duty is to protect you, then so be it."

He was definitely from the Kingdom. Probably a commoner who had gotten his ideas of chivalry from books instead of the lived reality of obsession with honor. "I made the best choice that I could. It wasn't the wrong one." No matter what the voices in her head told her. "The world has to change. But that's in Byleth and Claude's hands now."

He made a noncommittal noise."Things are always changing. I don't think it's in anyone's hands particularly. You're alive and helping us. You can do small things to make the world better still. "

Of all the sentimental condescending… "Confined to the monastery?"

"I helped lots of people when I was a student. I even gave money to people who were forced to steal. You could try that?" He stopped in front of familiar door and his tone grew more serious. "Byleth is giving you a chance, just like she gave me. Don't squander it."

Her old room seemed strange. The carpet was still Imperial red, if a bit faded, and someone had gone to the trouble of dusting and putting on fresh sheets recently. But her books, the landscape painting that had hung over her bed, everything that had made the place hers, was gone. It was, after all, a dormitory, she told herself. The Archbishop would have ordered any sign of her presence scrubbed after the Holy Tomb. But it was yet another reminder that the world had changed.

She wondered, idly, if the Knights has found all of her secrets. Well there was no harm in finding out. She went to the dresser and pulled out each of the drawers partway until what had previously seemed to be a knot in the wood slid forward. Edelgard yanked on it as well, and the hidden compartment she had installed revealed itself. She winced at the sight of the spare surplice and mask. The Flame Emperor had been too theatrical for her own good. There were documents, as well, various coded communications that had never quite made their ways to Enbarr but that Claude might find intriguing. And...a stuffed bear in a suit of armor?

_"Oh, come on Edie! He's adorable." Dorothea held up the brown bear. He did look cute with his big eyes and all. "You know you want one."_

_"Hubert would never let me hear the end of it." But it would be nice. She couldn't even remember most of her childhood thanks to Thales, let alone what stuffed animals she'd liked._

_"Well, keep it somewhere he wouldn't think to look." She winked. "I bet he'd secretly want one though."_

_"That's a frightening thought." Edelgard snorted despite herself and bought two. Just in case. She'd give the other to Hubert once they had united Fódlan._

Edelgard clapped her hand over her mouth as tears blurred her vision. The strength or denial that had kept her going since Enbarr vanished like so much smoke. She sank onto the bed. Dorothea, Hubert. It was one thing to hear that they were dead. It was another thing to look at that stupid bear and know what that meant. No more affectionate nicknames. No more planning the glorious world that they were going to build. And it wasn't just them. The Institute of Crestology she and Linhardt had planned would never be built. She and Petra would never sit across from each other as allies and equals as Brigid took it's rightful place in the world. Edelgard alone had survived, just like she had out her brothers and sisters. And for what? So she could nurse some childish infatuation while Byleth congratulated herself for her mercy? So she could watch as other people fulfilled her destiny?

Her thoughts were an indistinct swirl of darkness, a never ending cycle of memory and blame. Edelgard wasn't sure if it lasted hours or days. Maybe they would forget about their useless prisoner now that they had corralled her somewhere she was harmless. It was better than the alternatives. But eventually, there was a knock on the door.

It was probably Ashe with more of his platitudes. "Go away."

"I will not go away," Lysithea said. "It's time for dinner, and I know you haven't had anything since breakfast."

"I'm not hungry."

"Edelgard, open the door and stop sulking like a...like a child!" Silence for a moment. "If you don't open the door, I'll blow it off its hinges, and Byleth will come and see you like this. You don't want that do you?"

Damn that impertinent girl. Edelgard forced herself up, made sure the cabinet drawers were securely closed, and opened the door to a glaring Lysithea. She carried a monk's robe over one arm. "You look terrible," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"Yes, well, losing a war and being taken prisoner tends to be bad for your complexion." She crossed her arms. "What do you want, Lysithea?"

"Byleth was worried about you. She said you were holding yourself together so well that you reminded her of herself before she started teaching."

A mirthless laugh escaped Edelgard's lips before she could stop it. "As you can see, she has nothing to worry about."

Lysithea was silent for a long time. When she spoke again, her voice was faint. "When the mages told me what they had done and that I had a decade at best, I didn't eat for three days. My brothers and sisters were all dead, except for my oldest brother. And he was constantly being pulled back to the laboratory by smells and sounds. He stopped sleeping, and three months later he hanged himself."

The fog in Edelgard's mind cleared the tiniest bit. Shock and anger took its place She had never been good with other people's tragedies. Pain was personal and consolation and empathy required guessing what it was like for someone else. She preferred to act. Except she had failed to even rein in their torturers. "I'm sorry."

"Don't. I never could stand pity." She shuddered. "But you and I, we know what it's like, don't we? To be the last ones left?"

"We do." The last of her siblings, the last of her friends.

"Then believe me when I say that moping doesn't help." The softness vanished, and she scowled and put her free hand on her hip. "This Lord Arundel is invoking his regency powers and making what's left of your army fight a war that they have no hope of winning. Are you going to let him get away with that?"

Did he now?" There was honor in preferring death to surrender, but Thales knew of nothing but cruelty and spite. He had delighted in using her subjects as fodder for his experiments, knowing that she could only watch and wait for the day she was strong enough to take vengeance. "No, I'm not surprised. Now that Adrestia is of no use to him, he will destroy it because he can."

"You know him, then."

Edelgard touched her hair. "He's the one who did this to us."

Lysithea's eyes went dark. "Then he's going to pay for all the blood he spilled." She held up the robe. "What do you say you get cleaned up, sneak down to the dining hall, and tell Claude and the professor everything you know about your dear uncle?"

It wouldn't satisfy Hubert and Dorothea's shadows. Nothing could unless she could find a way to make her dream come true. But vengeance against Thales would give her a goal, something she could use to keep the memories at bay. She would never be what she had been and she would probably spend the rest of her days floating through the monastery like a ghost, but she would keep others from suffering as she had. "I think that sounds like a fine idea."


	4. Hrym

Hrym had to be the most blighted, desolate patch of land in Fódlan. Years of insurrections had torn up and salted fields until not even grass grew. Heat and humidity choked the air. Byleth's only comfort was that the Imperial remnant had an even better chance of being cooked inside their own armor. She peered at the dirt. Trodden, and by heavier boots than peasants or merchants would wear. Bergliez's men must be close by. "Lorenz, send a detachment along the river. Signal if you see them."

He nodded once, his brows creased together. "I sincerely hope I do. To spend soldiers' lives without hope of victory is a disgrace. To think that I always considered Count Bergliez a flower of nobility."

"War makes people desperate and brutal." She had learned that the hard way even before the war. " Be cautious. Being cornered like this will make him more dangerous, not less. And if he's is brilliant as Caspar says, then that will be doubly true." Caspar had spent most the night before they left for Hrym sharing stories of Count Bergliez teaching him to wield an axe, Randolph sending the step-nephew he'd never met a set of silver gauntlets for his birthday, the time Linhardt had gotten so angry at Caspar's attempts to make him train that he had accidentally decked him. Sometimes she wondered why he had chosen her instead of his family and country. Sometimes she wondered if it would have been kinder of her to have refused his request to teach him how to box. If he would have been happier as a loyal soldier working his way up the ranks.

That was the Ashen Demon talking. If he had stayed, he would have been as dead as Randolph and Linhardt. She'd told Edelgard the truth. Life was better than death. Life, no matter how messy or painful it was offered a chance to heal, to atone. "Don't risk yourself unnecessarily, but if possible I'd like to capture him alive. For Caspar's sake if nothing else."

Lorenz said nothing, but the creases in his brow deepened. Even she knew what that meant. "You object?"

"Yes and no." He let out a shuddering breath, and Byleth felt another lecture coming on. "Do you intend to collect the entire Imperial court? Perhaps feed them sweetmeats?"

Byleth's hands tensed on her reins. As much progress as she had made, other people's emotions were still horribly confusing at times, especially people like Lorenz. His impeccable manners just obfuscated his meaning even more. "You're angry. Please explain why."

"Edelgard attempted to conquer the continent, if you remember. My father lived in terror of angering her for five years. She is the monastery as our guest instead of our prisoner, and now you speak of recruiting the chief architect of the Imperial war machine."

Oh. "You want vengeance?" She understood that even if she wished she didn't. It was vengeance that had turned her into the Demon, and vengeance that had nearly killed her in the Sealed Forest.

"I wish to see justice done. Vengeance is the domain of fools who throw other people's lives away. And… You don't understand, do you?" His tone changed to the one he used when explaining proper etiquette at tea. "They have wronged the Alliance, Faerghus and countless numbers of their own citizens. Some price must be paid in restitution. Traditionally, blood has been repaid in blood."

"I won't execute Edelgard." Blood must be repaid in blood? She wondered what he, what Rhea, what any of those who had rallied to the Crest of Flames banner would think if they knew that she had killed women and children in her desire to be efficient. Would Lorenz demand her head as well, or would an exception be made out of pragmatism? "Not without reason. Besides, she told us about Arundel being Thales."

"I don't deny that she's been somewhat useful, but nowhere near enough to justify clemency. The people will riot."

"Clemency, by definition, isn't deserved. She and Count Bergliez will live as long as I can keep them alive. That is my answer."

"Then let us hope that Imperial assistance ends up being dramatic and public. Soon." He whirled his horse back to relate her orders to his men.

Byleth led her own soldiers west through what was left of a thicket of trees with gnarled roots that forced her cavalry to a walk. Her gaze darted to and fro, alert for any sign of ambush, even as she turned over Lorenz's words in her mind. Something public and dramatic from Edelgard and what was left of the Empire. Or else execute Edelgard. Or else keep their fragile alliance together by force and threat alone. The last two seemed like something Edelgard herself would do, she who had been so anxious to offer her life in service of peace. There had to be a better way. They could walk together instead of being enemies, just like Fódlanders and Dagdans and Almyrans could live together. She wasn't just a fool drunk on memories of a girl whose hand she had wanted so badly to hold.

There was a flicker of movement in the trees. "Ambush!" All other concerns faded. The Sword of the Creator slid into her hand. The blade glowed red as power thrummed from it to her and back again in a never-ending loop that made the hairs on her arm stand up. She heard rather than saw her men ready their lances and swords and charge forward. The first attacker was a quarter-turn to her right. Byleth pivoted and—

"It's the Ashen Demon! Please don't kill us!"

Byleth blinked. Imperial soldiers weren't known for their cowardice. But these weren't soldiers. Her attackers were a dozen peasants with raised farming implements. They were too pale and thin, just like the rioters the last time she had been here. "What's the meaning of this?"

She kept her sword up, letting them see the power. The soldiers readied their weapons as well. Relics and war silver against hoes and threshing scythes. The peasants had to know how this would end if they attacked. It was a horrible thing to kill civilians but if they forced her hand...

The peasants looked at each other, seeming to come to some understanding "Begging your pardon, milady." One of them hastily got to his knees. "Lord Arundel told us he would kill us and our families if we didn't attack everyone bearing that symbol on their armor. We didn't know that it would be you."

Throwing civilians at her. She couldn't say she was surprised, but Thales complete disregard for his "subjects" or his allies had to be some of the most malicious and petty evil that she had ever encountered. "There's no need to attack. This land is ours now, not Duke Aegir's or Arundel's. Better times are here."

"Better times? That's what they said before they overthrew the old emperor. The new emperor promised it too, but we're still hungry." He shivered. "Maybe you could just turn around and let us go home?"

"No. We need to find Count Bergliez."

"The count? Were you why he was going through here like he had Saint Seiros chasing after him?" He paled. "But if we don't try to kill you...I don't want Arundel to kill my son. He's just two. Have mercy."

Mercy. She had been trying to be merciful since this war began. And there was, perhaps, a way. Not a way that good people like Ferdinand, Ingrid, or Ashe would approve of, but a way nonetheless. "You called me the Ashen Demon. I got that name by burning down a whole village to get the people I was after. There were children there. If you attack me, well perhaps I would do the same thing to your families that Arundel would."

"You wouldn't."

"I'll do what I have to to put the finishing touches on this war." Now for the carrot. "I put down the riot. I know what kind of ruler Arundel is. Stand down, and you'll have all the bread you can carry. Please, make the right choice."

Seconds ticked by as Byleth held her breath. One by one, the peasants laid down their improvised weapons. Byleth didn't know if she could pray to something that was a part of her, but she whispered thanks to Sothis all the same. She motioned to one of the officers. "Give them as many rations as we can spare. Things are going to be different in the new Fódlan."

The peasants accepted the food with thanks so effusive that Byleth was left blushing despite her lack of a heartbeat, and it was some time before she could disentangle herself. They emerged into flatter, open land. Not good for sneaking up on a man who seemed determined to avoid them, but at least they could make good time in their search. Hopefully, there wouldn't be any more peasants. She hated baring her teeth like some dog. Even if, like a dog, sometimes she only needed to to growl a bit to keep the danger at bay. Threats were better than slaughter.

This new Fódlan had better be worth it.

"Lovely view, isn't it, Teach?"

Byleth looked up to find Claude hovering twenty feet above her. She twisted her lips into what might pass for a smile. "The same view as always. Come down here and we can complain about it properly."

Claude landed and alighted from his wyvern in one fluid motion. "I assume the peasants carrying food are your handiwork?"

Byleth shrugged. "Thales threatened their families. I convinced them that we actually had their best interests in mind." After she had scared them half to death. "I hate this war."

"Me too." He put a hand on her arm, comforting and seeking comfort at the same time. "I've had to threaten more people in the last five years that I have in my entire life. And you know the worst part? I would carry every single one of those threats out if it save more lives in the long run. Guess that's why we get along so well, eh Teach?"

"We taught each other everything we know." She looked around at the dead foliage. It would take a hundred years or the power of a god to restore Hrym. "At least you don't treat people like fodder. These people deserve so much better than Thales."

"Someone like you?"

Byleth froze. She couldn't have heard correctly. But Claude was looking at her with his earnest expression. He meant it. Nausea flared in the pit of her stomach. She had tolerated being a figurehead and rallying cry because something had to keep the Knights, Alliance, and the Kingdom exiles on the same page. But actually ruling? "You do remember all those times you had to explain to me which noble was which because I wasn't really around people besides the Blade Breakers?"

"I was ignorant of Fódlan once too. Statecraft can be taught, and I'm sure Ferdinand and Lorenz would be eager and capable chancellors. Don't tell them I said that." The earnest expression returned. "Fódlan needs someone who knows that the old ways don't work anymore and someone compassionate willing to rebuild it with the forgotten in mind. I can think of no one better."

Each word struck her until Byleth staggered atop her horse. They had never discussed her past beyond her being the daughter of a renowned mercenary. For all his outsider status, Claude was still a noble and would have been insulated from the old horrors. As much as she had tried to change, a massacre was the sort of thing that should permanently disqualify someone from ruling an entire continent. "I don't—"

Something glinted at the edge of her vision. A soldier's helmet. Lances. Imperial soldiers, their crimson tunics and black armor stained with dirt. At their head was a knight atop a black destrier. A helm obscured the top half of his face, but his full beard was light blue streaked with grey. "The invaders!" Count Bergliez shouted. "For Adrestia and the Emperor!"

Claude was back atop his wyvern in a moment, Failnaught in his hand. Her men raced toward her at the sight of the enemy and battle was joined. Emotion slid away as it always did in battle. Some thought battle was a game, others a test of strength, but the truth was that it was a puzzle. What was the best way to use her advantages to counter the enemy's and achieve her objective? She had two Relics capable of defeating entire armies on their own. Bergliez had none. She drew the Sword of the Creator once more, and some of the Adrestians shrank back. "Forward!"

They swept over the Imperials like the tide. Lances and swords clanged so loudly that her ears rang. She aimed her blade towards the nearest knight. He screamed in pain as it coiled around his arm, melting the armor and yanked him from his horse. He disappeared beneath a sea of frantic hooves. Again and again, Byleth cast her blade at the enemy, sometimes unhorsing them and sometimes killing them outright. Red streaks peppered the air as Failnaught joined to the slaughter. And still, Bergliez's men fought on.

She whirled and found herself face to face with her enemy. Bergliez had added blood to the dirt on his armor. "You are as skilled and valiant as they say," he said between pants. "It is an honor to cross blades with you."

He swung his axe at her. Byleth parried, but the force of his blow was almost enough to throw her shoulder from its socket. She fixed Caspar's face in her mind. "There's no need to cross blades at all. You know that you don't have enough men to hold even your own territory. Caspar says it isn't like you to throw their lives away."

"Don't bring that traitor into this!" Another blow, strong but sloppy. "I fight for the Empire, come what may. If I don't, there are things worse than death."

"Arundel? You know what he truly is, don't you?" He flinched, and Byleth pressed her advantage. She aimed the blade for his axe arm. He dodged, but only just. "Last I checked, the Emperor outranks the Regent. Edelgard is helping us against his true allies."

"Her Majesty is alive? Arundel said—" His visible skin, already flush with exertion, turned a deep crimson. "You abducted her! Abduction," he muttered and struck at her horse. Byleth reared back, but it gave Bergliez the opening he needed to rush back toward his collapsing line. "Sound the retreat! We still have hope, but not here."

The worst part of battle was the aftermath, and the worst part of the aftermath was the smell. Their own losses were light, but the air still stank of blood and death. Byleth tended wounds as best she could, searching for those in direst need of aid and barking for help sorting and tending to the less seriously wounded. No doubt some of the Imperials Bergliez had been forced to leave behind were minor nobles that could be ransomed back in fairly short order. She and Claude would have to sort out the rest later:who could be paroled, who perhaps would join them, and who needed to be imprisoned for everyone's safety. Her arm still ached. Later. Much later. After a nice nap.

"He seemed awfully keen to throw his life away." Claude was sweaty but otherwise unharmed. "And I know Randolph was a bit of a hothead, but generally speaking you don't get to command an army by attacking when you don't have a chance."

"Thales." Byleth wiped her brow. "I'd wager my weight in gold that he's threatening Bergliez's men if they don't fight to the death."

"He needs to go. Or at least we need to give what's left of the Imperial Army someone to listen to besides him." He stroked his chin. "And as unqualified as you think you are, you have to admit that you would be a much better ruler for Fódlan than him."

Not this again. "You're right I'm only the second worst person. Even Edelgard would be better. Fódlan's going to need someone whose best qualification isn't how well they can kill."

"We all have blood on her hands, Teach." He put a hand on her shoulder, and it burned like the Sword of the Creator. "Your heart is what's important."

"I killed children!" The words echoed in the silence of the battlefield. Byleth clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was already too late. He stared at her in wide-eyed shock. Shame flooded her. He knew now. One of her precious Deer knew about the Demon. The only sensible thing to do was run. She mounted her horse. "I'm going to see if I can find the remains of their camp. Don't look for me."

Byleth wasn't sure how long she rode. Long enough that the air turned cold on her sweaty skin. Pain like molten steel coursed through her, trapped by her body's refusal to cry. When Rhea had offered her the professorship, it had seemed to be a gift from a Goddess that she was only dimly aware of. She would put the Demon behind her and teach the students to be both clever and just. Even her infatuation with Edelgard had been welcome because it had meant that she was still capable of softness. But the past was with her like a ghost even though there was no one left for her to make amends to. Now Claude knew what kind of person he had entrusted with his ambitions of peace.

The Imperial camp had been dismantled in haste, judging by the tentpoles thrown down on the grass. Byleth forced down her wayward emotions. Hopefully, there was some clue where Bergliez had taken his army. He had hope, but not here? His was a rump army even more decimated than Dimitri's. There was no hope to turn the tide in Adrestia's favor unless Thales possessed another weapon with the strength of the javelins of light.

Wings beat above her. Byleth sighed. "I told you not to look for me."

Claude dismounted. "I've never been good at doing what I was told." He smiled, and it was so bright that the pain in her chest surged again.

"What now?" she whispered.

He shrugged. "Now I help you find Bergliez."

"That's it?"

"That's it. If you're looking for forgiveness, it isn't mine to grant." He put another hand on her shoulder, but his grip was firm and she couldn't pull away without hurting one of them. "You remember that I had to threaten people to stop Enbarr from being razed? It's because the line between 'we need to show our strength' and pillaging is pretty thin. Some of the stories I heard when Nader thought it was him and the riders..." He shook his head. "I don't care about what you did in the past. I care about what you're doing in the present. And in the present, you're doing more to heal Fódlan than anyone."

Something thick lodged in her throat. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Though I have to admit, you going out of your way for Edelgard makes a lot more sense now." He released her. "Speaking of which, let's find Bergliez."

They searched for some time in silence. It wasn't the comfortable silence of their school days, but it wasn't the cold awkwardness of the return from Enbarr. Byleth still couldn't believe he was so nonchalant. Claude had always been a strange one, in the best possible way.

They found what they were looking for just before dusk. Hoofprints, too heavy to be anything but warhorses, heading west. Byleth frowned. Why would Bergliez be heading towards them? She had routed him with a fraction of her true resources. It would be trivially easy to send the forces from the monastery out to crush him once and for all.

The monastery. Oh. He had no hope of taking the monastery, but he didn't have to. Byleth had told him they had Edelgard. The Emperor outranked the Regent. If Bergliez rescued Edelgard, he had an excuse to disobey Arundel. He could spirit her to Dagda or somewhere beyond, and as cooperative as Edelgard was being now, she wouldn't be the first emperor-in-exile to take back their throne with an army of mercenaries at their back. The next time she and Byleth crossed blades, Byleth would have to make that fatal strike.

"Claude, find Lorenz. We have to get back to Garreg Mach. Now."


	5. The Two Emperors

Edelgard wasn't sure that she had ever come to the greenhouse when she was a student. She thought she would have rather liked the slow pace of gardening, but there had been no time for hobbies between her schoolwork, planning a war, and doing Thales' dirty work as the Flame Emperor. Bernadetta had been here on the rare occasions Manuela could coax her from her room, and Edelgard did her best to avoid her screaming fits. Bernadetta. Her fist clenched. No, she wouldn't think about Gronder. Bernadetta had chosen to fight by her side. She wouldn't dishonor that. But she hadn't chosen the flames, Edelgard's last desperate attempt to halt the Alliance. Her screams had cut through the air and Edelgard had punched the wall of her makeshift wooden fortification so hard that there had been splinters in her hand afterwards.

"Edelgard!" Lysithea's voice yanked her back to reality. "Careful."

Edelgard looked down at a nearly-mangled rosebush and hastily put down the pruning shears. She had managed to confine unwanted memories to her nightmares for years, but ever since her defeat they came unbidden. She was tired of useless grief that helped no one. Tears weren't fitting tributes, only actions were. Not that she had had a chance to do much beyond stew in her thoughts since Byleth and Claude had departed for Hrym.

She had expected church assassins to come from her the moment Byleth's back was turned, but Seteth had honored the terms of her stay, surprisingly, and Rhea had confined herself to her room on the third floor. Her guard was a rotating set of her former schoolmates, usually Lysithea or Ashe, but sometimes Caspar or Ferdinand, and their reputations had ensured that she had suffered nothing more than glares, when she saw people at all. They had a genius for finding places in the monastery that were nearly deserted, and for discovering places she could take meals without feeling like an animal in the menagerie. Her memories of her time in Fhirdiad were fractured like glass, but there was the same feeling of being a game piece and wondering what the next move was. This time she had submitted to the game for the sake of accomplishing something to make the last five years matter.

And, she thought ruefully, she cared far more about Byleth than the man who had deposed her father.

"Sorry," she muttered. "Just thinking."

"I'm sick of thinking." Caspar paced the length of the greenhouse for what must have been the tenth time that day. "Do you think the professor will be able to talk my father down? Stubbornness does kind of run in the family."

"I don't know," Lysithea said. "Just like I didn't know when you asked five minutes ago."

"Can you blame me for being nervous?"

"Calm yourself, Caspar," Ferdinand dug into the soil with his hand trowl. "The professor saved all of us, after all."

"Yes, she did." Ashe looked down, and his voice was soft and sad. "We're the ones who would be dead if not for the professor. Or worse than dead. Except for Lysithea, I suppose. She would have ended up fighting with Claude regardless."

"No, I'd probably be dead by now as well." Edelgard had seen that tired, regretful expression in the mirror more times than she cared to count. "Throwing my life away in a desperate attempt to make what time I did have matter."

"The professor helped you?" Her shoulder ached, the legacy of that last battle. She knew what it was like to know that the sands in the hourglass of her life were flowing far too quickly. Fifteen years of good health, another twenty of slow decline. She would not see sixty. Every battle of the war, every moment that she swallowed her hatred for her siblings murderers, every horror she herself inflicted, was done to win the war as quickly as possible and by herself one more day to build a more just Fódlan. But as the proof of concept for what Edelgard had endured, Lysithea likely had even less time. "You don't always hear the clock in your head?"

Ferdinand's brows creased in confusion. "Why would either of you hear clocks?"

Edelgard winced. She had been forced to reveal her twin Crests to Lysithea, Byleth, and Claude, but Ferdinand was another matter entirely. "A metaphor. Surely you understand what a metaphor is?"

He winced, but then he laughed and Edelgard felt a mild stab of guilt. "Ah, your familiar annoyance. I was beginning to think you have been rendered permanently sullen. I am glad to see you are recovering."

The stab sharpened a bit. He had been concerned about her? After she had attainted his father and driven him into exile? "I can't wallow in what-might-have-beens. The professor has chosen to spare my life." She looked at Lysithea. "I will use what time I have in service to Adrestia and freeing her from those who have controlled her from the shadows."

"Here here." Ashe smiled a little. "Those who have received what they don't deserve must use it wisely. Like the Silver Falcon."

"Silver Falcon?"

"A tale of chivalry, though not one usually told in Faerghus." His voice took on the low and rhythmic cadence of a storyteller. "There once was a knight who was known throughout the land for his skill, but also for his arrogance. In his arrogance he rebelled against the king, who was a drunk and a philanderer. The knight was captured and sentenced to death for his treason. His wife begged the king's advisor for mercy, and he took pity on her, for he knew how wicked his liege truly was. He used his magic to turn the knight into a falcon, intending to have him fly away. But the knight loved his new form and used his talons and claws to kill anyone who harmed those who lived on his former lands. His wife ruled in his place, but the king was still a bad king and the knight resolved to end his tyranny. He tore a pound of flesh from the king's chest and killed him, but not before the king shot him with a poisoned arrow. The knight died as a human in his wife's arms."

No wonder they didn't like the story in the Kingdom. Rebellion was not knightly and never mind the gaggle of nobles who had been happy to help orchestrate Lambert's death. "So you hope we all have heroic deaths?"

"I—"

"Don't mind Edelgard. I don't think she ever liked stories."

"I do like stories. But I've never been much for chivalry, I'm afraid." Or any reminder of the code taught by well-meaning priests who had had the nerve to preach of justice after she'd been freed from the dungeons. "What's the point if he dies anyway?"

"Huh. When you put it that way..." He shrugged. "That he did the same things for the right reasons. Does it not matter?"

"Can we stop talking about death?" Caspar flailed wildly and almost knocked over a tray of potting soil in his frustration. "Because my father is exactly the kind of man who would turn into a falcon."

The bells chimed four times, the signal that Byleth and her forces had returned. They shot up in surprise. It was a full two days before she was expected to return. Edelgard forced herself to put her gardening supplies away neatly before making sure her hood was up and rushing out the door. It seemed unlikely that anything had happened to Byleth when she had endured the full fury of Edelgard and her best troops with nothing more than a few cuts and bruises, but she still hurried.

Seemingly everyone at the monastery thronged at the gate. Edelgard mentally cursed her lack of height. It shouldn't matter, but she wanted to see Byleth and not the backs and heads of soldiers and merchants. The alternative was drawing attention to herself by pushing to the front, though, so she was forced to settle for listening. The crowd cheered as hooves sounded on the cobblestones. Edelgard exhaled. Byleth must have been safe. She looked over at Caspar, who was frowning at his own poor sightline and trying to convince Ferdinand to hoist him on his shoulders "just for a second" so that he could see over the crowd. She hoped Bergliez had seen reason. Thales didn't deserve the satisfaction of forcing a competent general to throw his life away.

The crowd parted for the briefest of moments. Edelgard slipped through the gap and saw Byleth. She sat straight upon her white horse and seemed every inch the returning conqueror. Her face was impassive, as it usually was, but she seemed paler. She didn't seem injured. There was no sign of Bergliez. If he had been captured, tradition would have dictated that he ride immediately behind her as a captive. Granted, Byleth had spared Edelgard that humiliation, but she would have felt better if she had seen Bergliez.

Byleth turned her head, and Edelgard swallowed her breath. She didn't know how she knew, but Byleth saw her. Her gaze rooted Edelgard to the spot. She had thought those eyes blank and uncanny when they first met, but by the time she had been unmasked in the Holy Tomb, those eyes had seemed so deep that the unwary could drown in them. There was no point in hiding anything from that gaze because it could see both the emperor and the little girl who just wanted out of the darkness. Or so her fevered, half-infatuated mind told her.

The moment passed, and Edelgard was released to find a new hobby with which to avoid the crowd. It was Lysithea's turn to guard her, if she wasn't mistaken. Maybe they could sneak to the market and see if any of the merchants had sweets.

It wasn't to be. She entered the hall and nearly collided with Seteth. "Edelgard." His voice was as clipped and sternly polite as always, but he too seemed a little pale. "Your presence is required immediately." He glared at Caspar and Ferdinand. "Alone."

Speaking to her but not one of Byleth's trusted lieutenants couldn't portend anything good, but there was little she could do in the heart of the monastery and with a dozen Knights looking at her as if she were Nemesis come again. "As you wish."

He led her upstairs to the part of the monastery that had been professors' offices and the audience chamber. Instead of heading to either of those places, they took a right turn down a corridor where Edelgard had never been. There were a few monks and scholars here, the insignia on their robes indicating senior positions. They stared at Edelgard with the same malice as their fellows. She kept her head up and matched the pace of her escort. Whatever came next, she would not be cowed.

Seteth led her to an unmarked door and motioned for the Knights to stop. "Few outside the highest levels of the church hierarchy ever see this room. I trust you are aware of the irony of the situation and will attempt to be respectful. With that, he ushered her inside and locked the door behind them.

Light filtered in from high, narrow windows onto the enormous table that dominated the room. A mural of Saint Seiros descending from the heavens adorned the opposite wall, but otherwise the pomp that surrounded the Central Church was absent. She sniffed. The air was musty as well. Only one place could be so secret and yet so honored. "So this is where the Cardinals convene."

Rhea sat at the head of the table. Her bruises had healed somewhat, but not to the degree they should have after almost a month. She regarded Edelgard with contempt, but it was more controlled than it had been the first day. Claude and Byleth were still in their riding clothes, looking grim. Edelgard took the open seat nearest Byleth and waited.

"We found Bergliez." Claude said without preamble. "He's heading for the monastery. Best guess? He'll be here the day after tomorrow."

"He's coming here?" Edelgard did the calculations in her head. She had only managed to take the monastery the first time with overwhelming force, and even then it had been a near thing. "He'll be slaughtered in a frontal assault, and he doesn't have the manpower for a siege either. And he knows both those things."

"Yes. He's coming for you. So that the Empire no longer needs a Regent."

The pieces clicked into place. Bergliez would create a court in exile for her. Whether they had any realistic hope for raising enough forces to continue the war hardly mattered. As long as the Emperor of Adrestia reigned, she would be an obstacle for Claude's own plans for the continent. Rebellions would be raised in her name. "As long as I live, this war will never end."

Byleth's pallor deepened, but none of them looked surprised by her words. So this was it then. They were giving her the courtesy of an explanation before they executed her. A month, that was all taking Byleth's hand had bought her. A month and a chance to part on somewhat friendlier terms with her old enemies. It wasn't enough. She...she didn't want to die. The thought came as a shock that forced her to bury her face in her hands. For years, she had known that she was slowly dying. The world she was building wasn't one that she was going to live in. She had accepted her death at Byleth's hands. But she wanted to avenge her family and to have more moments in the greenhouse and the thousand other things she had denied herself to become the leader that Fódlan needed. To discover that now... the world must enjoy playing cruel jokes on her.

"I would like it done quickly and quietly," she managed. "I won't be a spectacle."

"That's one alternative," Claude said. "Not my preferred plan, though. You see, I don't need you dead. I just need you not to be Emperor." He bent down, produced a wooden box, and opened it. Carefully wrapped in silk was the Adrestian crown. Not the tiara she had fashioned for herself, but the plain gold circlet topped with the double-headed eagle that legend said Saint Seiros had crafted for Grand Emperor Wilhelm. The crown used when every Emperor for a thousand years had crowned their successor.

"You want me to abdicate."

"For the sake of peace." His voice was gentle. "I want you to murder your pride for the sake of Bergliez's life. And your own."

The room was suddenly very cold. She had prepared for death, but not for surrender. To abdicate was to abandon her dream and watch as someone else took Fódlan down a different path. To admit in some small way that she was wrong. And, as much as the memories of her dead friends haunted her, she could not say that. Death might be preferable to the lie.

A warm, calloused hand covered her own. Byleth. "Please. I would like you to live. They will remember you as a martyr or a monster if you die now. But I think you should be remembered as the brilliant woman who helped push Fódlan into the future." Her lips turned upwards. "And as the girl who tackled me during the Battle of the Eagle and Lion."

She had almost forgotten about that. Byleth had cut through half the Black Eagles on her own and Edelgard had flown at her in a desperate attempt to stem the tide. They had rolled together in the grass and Edelgard had been so distracted by the warm muscle that she had barely noticed when Felix had taken the opportunity to eliminate them both. The thought that someone thought of her as that girl made her chest ache. "For the sake of Adrestia, I will do this on two conditions. First, the archbishop will not stand as witness. I will not play the penitent."

Rhea made a choked sound. "Even with your life forfeit, you show no respect for the Goddess."

Claude smiled at her. "We're doing this to stop her army, and I imagine the people who would care were purged long ago. I'm sure old school friends will be happy to stand in. What's the second condition?"

Edelgard inhaled. The Emperor always chose their successor. The best of them chose with the welfare of Adrestia above all other concerns or affection. There was only one person that she trusted to lead Adrestia into a new dawn. The person she had wanted to guide her own path. "I will crown Professor Byleth and none other."

Claude's smile widened, and Edelgard couldn't escape the feeling she'd played into some scheme. Even Rhea smiled. "The Goddess gifted you with this power. How right that you'll now use it to heal the land where the church was founded."

Now it was Byleth who buried her face in her hands. "Damn you," she whispered. "Damn all of you."

"At least everyone will live, Teach. I'm thinking we should do the coronation as close to Bergliez's arrival as possible." He smiled that strange smile again, earning a glare with a surprising amount of heat behind it from his professor. "We'll leave you two to iron out the protocol. Archbishop, may I escort you to the gardens? You look like you could use some fresh air. You too, Seteth. You've been running yourself ragged since Enbarr, and I want a chance to pry away some of those lovely secrets that you two have been keeping."

The three of them shuffled out, and Edelgard and Byleth were left alone. Edelgard had no idea what to say. She had always planned on giving up her crown, but only once Fódlan was united and the idolization of Crests was abolished. The only time Byleth had figured into those plans, was when one of the younger Eagles had smuggled in some alcohol and Caspar had dared her to try it. She'd completely lost her reason and waxed poetic about how when she was Emperor, she would lay her crown at Byleth's feet.

This hadn't been what she'd had in mind.

"I don't know about you," Byleth blurted out at last, "but I need a drink."

Edelgard couldn't help herself. She laughed, for the first time in she didn't even remember. It felt strange, like a stone that had been embedded in her flesh was at last loose. "I don't think it's a very good idea for me to have alcohol at the moment. Do you have any tea?"

Byleth still used her former quarters on the first floor. Edelgard surveyed the worn furniture and faded carpet for clues about the woman who would soon rule Adrestia before giving up. She had made her choice, and there was nothing left to do but deal with it and carry out her last duties as Emperor.

Byleth busied herself with the tea set. It was fine porcelain from somewhere to the east, likely a gift from Ferdinand or Lorenz. She tapped her teeth and selected a packet of tea leaves. It felt oddly...normal, watching her prepare tea, as if they hadn't been trying to kill each other a month ago and as if Edelgard hadn't just escaped the axe. Sometimes she wondered if the sheer strangeness of how they were treating her was what kept her from lashing out.

A familiar citrusy aroma wafted through the air. "My favorite."

Byleth looked down, almost shy. "I thought it might be. It suits you. Refined, elegant."

Edelgard flushed. She was used to such flattery from admirers for whom the remote, cold Emperor was an irresistible challenge or from fawning courtiers, but Byleth was neither of those things. It felt good and terribly confusing. "Why? After everything, you go out of your way to select my favorite tea?"

Byleth frowned, confused. "You asked if I had tea. Why wouldn't I serve you something you'd like?"

"Because I'm your prisoner. Because is much as I hate them, I was allies with your father's murderers. Because I can't possibly justify all the trouble you've gone to keep me alive. And yet, you not only spared me, you've been kind. Even now that you've gotten the last useful thing that I can give you. Why?"

"Because I want to? Please don't glare at me like that. I'm not good with those kinds of questions." She poured the tea into cups and threw herself into the chair opposite. "You said we were alike the day that I asked you about you and your classmates. I suppose I agree with you. And honestly, if I'm understanding what you are actually helping to accomplish correctly, it doesn't sound so terrible. I love Rhea but things can't go on like this. I've seen the way people are abandoned or sold off because of Crests. Or treated like dirt for being foreign. Or murdered for no reason than because a noble wanted more money and power. If I have to be Emperor, I'll use that power to make things better."

What? She had known Claude was not a follower of the Goddess and that he had intended some sort of unification, but an outsider could never understand how diseased society had become. But Byleth had seen and did care. Edelgard closed her eyes. "I wonder if it would have made a difference," she whispered. "If I had dared reach out my hand sooner. If you have been my teacher. If I would have been strong enough to achieve my dream without, well you saw."

"I don't know. No one is ever told what would have happened. But I…admired you once. That's a good enough reason to be kind, don't you think?"

"I'm afraid the girl you knew back then was burned away years ago."

She shrugged. "I might come to admire the person you are now. There's only one way one way to find out."

Edelgard had no idea how to respond to that, so she didn't try. They sipped their tea in silence. The awkwardness faded little by little until the silence was peaceful instead of tense. Byleth was odd, and Edelgard still didn't know what to do with her kindness, but it was nice to be able to exhale, for a little of the weight to slide from her shoulders. It would have been nice to have had this during her school days, but perhaps the new emperor would consent to the occasional tea break.

The new emperor. There was something she had to do for the sake of her father and for the sake of everyone who had died for her crusade. She cleared her throat. "The first emperor was a companion of Saint Seiros, who helped him win the War of Heroes. The books in the library will tell you all about how heroic they were and how much the Goddess blessed humanity. It isn't the truth. The truth has been passed down from Emperor to Emperor since the first. I'll tell you what Father told me, if you'll allow it."

Byleth put down her teacup and leaned forward slightly, motioning for Edelgard to continue. "The War of Heroes wasn't the chosen of the Goddess striking down the vile apostate. It was an ordinary war, fought for the usual reasons of territory and resources. Relics were crafted by humanity from a substance now mostly lost. But they lost anyway because Wilhelm betrayed them and joined with Seiros. The two of them created what became church dogma in order to establish legitimacy and allow Seiros' people to subtly shape the minds of the entire continent. Starting with the creation of the Crest system." Edelgard sighed. "There you have it. The truth is that the Adrestian Empire was built on deception and bloodshed."

"That's...a lot to take in."

"You've seen Rhea turn into a dragon. And I can vouch for the ability to create a Relic."

"Aymr. I'd wondered where you got that."

"Fashioned by my 'allies.'" She barely kept the snarl from her voice. "Think me a tyrant or a monster, but I'm not mad. Some details are doubtless lost to history, but what I've told you is more true than not."

Byleth's face betrayed not even subtle emotion. "I've already learned about a shadow war that has been going on for a millennium. I'm not ruling anything out in either direction." Something pained, almost too faint for Edelgard to discern, passed across her face. "I could never think you mad. You're the last, most brilliant of the Hresvelgs. And I have a thousand questions for the person who was actually raised to do this."

They talked for hours, filling and refilling their cups until there was nothing left. Edelgard told her all she knew of how to keep nobles in line, what sorts of taxes best struck a balance between fairness and raising revenue, and what sorts of qualities to look for in those she appointed to office. Byleth was an eager student, asking questions and grabbing a pen and parchment to scribble notes. If Edelgard had to relinquish her crown, at least it would be to someone who cared for her advice.

"I think that's all my poor mind can take for one day. But I'll definitely be looking at those books you mentioned." Byleth stood and stretched, languid and almost catlike. "And I'll have to keep you close for a while to explain what tax is equivalent to what service."

Edelgard raised an eyebrow. "Keeping the tyrannical emperor you deposed at hand will not endear you to the more pious among your subjects."

"I said that I wanted your advice, not that I'm making you a minister. And fortunately for me those same subjects think that I'm the reincarnation of Seiros or that Sothis chose me." Her gaze flickered down. "They don't know what I am. What good is adulation you don't deserve if you can't use it to get decent advice? Most of my work as a mercenary was putting down rebellions. That you kept your Empire stable during the war tells me that you're someone whose opinion I want, if only so I can get a more…pragmatic perspective. "

Pragmatic. A diplomatic way of describing how she had conducted her war. If she could keep it up, Byleth had the makings of a fine political instinct. If it meant more evenings like this one that had made what should have been a terrible day somewhat pleasant, then Edelgard would give her all the advice she wanted. "I will be ever at Your Majesty's service." She smiled and almost meant it.

Byleth repaid her with one of her own small smiles. "I suppose I have get used to people calling me that. May I walk you back to your room? I kept you here so late, and I feel guilty pulling the others away from what they're doing."

They made their way down the corridors, and if Edelgard ignored the flowing material of her robe and the glares of the soldiers they passed, she could almost pretend she was a student being escorted back to her room by a professor whose tutoring session had run too long. Byleth stopped in front of her door. "Thank you, for helping me when you didn't have to."

"Things are what they are. You will rule Adrestia and probably all of Fódlan after that. I'd rather my subjects have a good emperor than a bad one."

"Still… Thank you." Byleth took her hand. Her fingers were calloused from a lifetime of holding a blade, but they were so long and warm. Edelgard's breath caught in her throat. She had driven Dorothea to distraction with her innocent, girlish fantasies of holding the unobtainable professor's hand. Why it was happening now when her dream was a failure and she had nothing to offer was a mystery that she couldn't fathom. "Goodnight, Edelgard."

The nightmare came as if to remind her that her happiness would always be transient. She dreamed of Gronder, of being both responsible and helpless as the ballista was engulfed in flames. Bernadetta's screams echoed in her ears the way they never had in life. There were other voices too: Dorothea, Hubert, her siblings, all saying the same thing.

_You are alive and we are dead. You lied to us and you surrendered rather than die for your ideals. Traitor._

Edelgard woke in the predawn light, shivering. The nightmares were always lies. The nightmares were always lies. She had played a terrible hand as best she could to bring an end to Agartha. She could die when they were gone but not before.

There was a knock at her door. "Edelgard," Lysithea said. "Count Bergliez has been sighted. We need to do the coronation now. May I come in?"

"Yes." She breathed in. From now on, she could not show fear nor regret. If there was any hope of saving what remained of Adrestia from Thales, she could only be the emperor passing her crown to the best possible successor, just as before she could only be the warrior. Edelgard's feelings would have to wait.

Lysithea entered, and looked Edelgard up and down. "Of all the time for you to have a bad night's sleep. Honestly!"

She helped Edelgard don the imperial regalia for the last time. It felt heavier than it ever had, and she wondered how she had ever managed to fight in it. Even the crown felt heavier than it should have. She had never been much for makeup, but today she did her best to hide the shadows under her eyes and bring color to her cheeks. She looked at herself in the mirror. The last Hresvelg emperor, her hair loose as she rarely had a chance to wear it while she reigned.

_My dear El...I leave the fate of Fódlan in your capable hands._

"I'm sorry, Father," she whispered. "I suppose that's it then. Shall we go?"

"One last thing." Lysithea reached into her robes and pulled out a slightly smushed piece of cake. "This always calm my nerves."

"Thank you," Edelgard nibbled delicately and didn't immediately vomit, so she took that as a good sign.

"Edelgard?" Lysithea twirled a strand of white hair. "You asked me how I stopped always thinking about how much time I have left, but I never got the chance to answer you. The truth is that I saw too many people die stupid deaths in this war. People who should have lived another fifty years. So I might live another day or another five years, or Claude might find a way to perform that miracle he's always promising. But I can do something meaningful in the time I have left, even though I may not finish. And having friends I know will pick up where I left off helps."

Claude and Byleth awaited them in the entrance hall. Byleth looked no better than she felt, and Claude's smile was more forced than usual. "Bergliez and his men are just beyond our perimeter. I don't think we're going to lack for witnesses."

"I just hope he honors this."

"I think he will. I hope he will. He never much cared for my allies." A thought struck her. "Invite him to parlay at the gates, it may be more effective. Let him see for himself that I do this by my own will. Let the people who were willing to give their lives for me stand witness to my final hour as their emperor."

"And hope this isn't an elaborate plan to knife us in the back and make a run for it," Claude said lightly. "Lead on, Your Majesties."

They went out and despite the early hour and the soft glow of sunrise on the monastery stone, the late summer air was thick with heat. She had never much cared for mornings even under the best circumstances because it meant another day in which disaster might strike or she would be forced to make another painful sacrifice. Her heart pounded in her chest with every step as they walked towards the gate. Even though yesterday had given her a hope for Byleth's role beyond anything she had ever dreamed, it still felt like going to the executioner's block.

She saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Rhea, dressed in the same kind of robes Edelgard wore when she needed to be inconspicuous and with the cowl pulled up to hide her hair and ears. She stopped and simply stood there, watching. Gloating at her enemy's defeat? But if anything, Edelgard would have said that she looked wistful.

Byleth followed her gaze. "What's Rhea doing here? And why is she trying to hide herself away?"

Claude frowned. "Well, the story goes that Seiros crowned the first Hresvelg Emperor, right? Maybe she thinks she ought to see the first Eisner Emperor crowned?"

"And the last," Byleth muttered. "I'll take the crown, but I draw the line at natural children."

Bergliez was waiting for her with his honor guard. They looked as if they had spent a week camping in the mud. He came as close to a smile as she had ever seen from him. "Your Majesty. I'm delighted you're unharmed."

"Likewise, Bergliez." She drew herself to her full height. Now was the critical moment. She had always known how to sway a crowd and inspire adulation when needed. She varied her pitch and rhythm until her voice was a hook that yanked her listener forward. "I am aware of those who have abused you and your men and hijacked our dream in the service of revenge and cruelty. This will not stand, and I consider their destruction more important than all elsr."

She motioned for Byleth to stand beside her. "That is why I am giving my crown to this woman. You've faced her, but her combat skill is not why I must step aside. You did nothing while my siblings and I endured unspeakable horror. Those monsters sought to create a new Nemesis. Well, the Crest I bled for is her natural gift. She can wield the Sword of the Creator without a Crest Stone. This is Nemesis' true heir and our hope for an end to the tyranny of Crests and for a peaceful and free Fódlan." She heard a gasp, and it occurred to her that she had never told Byleth or the others what her second Crest was. Too late now. "Redeem yourself for your inaction and follow her as you have followed me."

Bergliez looked skeptical. "This is your choice? Your free choice?"

Edelgard hadn't had a free choice since she was nine years old, but that was irrelevent. "Our army needs reinforcements, and Thales and his minions must be purged. I always intended to give up my crown when I found a worthy successor. I have. In becoming Adrestia's emperor, she will turn our tactical defeat into a strategic victory."

Seconds passed. They felt like decades. But at last Bergliez bowed his head. "If you truly believe this is for the best, then I will kneel to her as my emperor. "

"It is." The difficult part was over and all that remained was putting her pride to death. "Byleth Eisner, step forward."

Byleth stood before her. She looked resolute, her unearthly hair swept up by the wind. Soldiers would throw themselves at her feet. "Do you come seeking the crown of Adrestia?"

"I do."

"Do you swear to rule with justice and wisdom?"

"I do."

"Do you swear to be valiant in defense from her enemies?"

"I do."

"Do you swear to place her before all your desires? Your loves and your hatreds?"

"I do."

Edelgard brought her hands together to slip her signet ring from her finger. "Then know from this day forward that your life does not belong only to you. Take this ring as a symbol of the vows you have made." She took Byleth's left hand. It was trembling, and there was an almost imperceptible blush to her cheeks. Edelgard steadied her own breathing and slipped the ring on her finger.

Byleth knelt in the grass as Edelgard had once knelt before the Imperial throne. It was almost over. She took the crown from her head and held it above Byleth's head. "Byleth Eisner, the crown is yours." She placed the crown on Byleth's head. Her shoulders tensed as some leashed, coiled power welled within her. "By the covenant between the red blood and the white sword, and by the double-headed eagle upon your head, I hereby proclaim you the new emperor."

Byleth rose. Royalty suited her. She seemed older, the aura of command she always had blazing like a flame. They regarded each other, and Edelgard hope she understood all the could not be said aloud._ This burden is not an easy one. Bear it well. You must finish what I began._ She knelt, as her father had done for her. "Long live the emperor."

"Long live the Emperor," Count Bergliez repeated.

The honor guard took up the chant and Edelgard was, for the moment, forgotten as Byleth drew the Sword of the Creator and let its power course through her. Edelgard closed her eyes against the light. Someone else would take up the work she had left unfinished. The thought might comfort Lysithea, but it only reminded Edelgard of how far she had fallen short.

May Byleth wear the crown better than she had.


	6. Hard Truths

_By the order of the emperor, Byleth Eisner, the writ of attainder for Alonso von Aegir is hereby revoked. His heirs are authorized to take possession of his titles and lands according to customary law. Done this day the twenty-first of the Verdant Rain Moon, 1186._

Byleth pressed her signet ring into the hot wax and handed the parchment to Ferdinand. "Congratulations, Duke Aegir."

Ferdinand bowed low. "Thank you, Your Majesty."

Byleth grimaced. She wondered if she would ever hear those words and not have the urge to look for Edelgard or Dimitri. "None of that now. It's just Professor to you."

"Professor." His smile was brighter and warmer than it had been since the war began. "With you at our head and me taking my rightful place as Prime Minister, there is nothing we cannot do for Fódlan. I already have some proposals for—"

Byleth held up her hand. The rest of the day would not be nearly so pleasant. "You aren't Prime Minister, not yet."

Ferdinand stepped back. His wounded expression always reminded her of a kicked puppy. "Why ever not? Aegir has held the post of Imperial Prime Minister since the days of Wilhelm. Please, tell me how I have displeased you so that I may rectify my failure."

"You haven't failed at all. But things are so fragile right now that I need to know that I'm appointing the best possible prime minister. All I've ever seen from you is as my student."

"I see. I must prove my worth." His jaw set and his brows creased together as if this were a tactics essay. "I am not sure how. I could not defeat Edelgard in a duel, but you could. How am I to surpass you?"

A dull pressure throbbed in her temples. She had only been emperor for a few weeks, and the logic of nobles would probably always confuse her, no matter how often Lorenz tried to explain. "What does a duel have to do with being prime minister?"

"Well, how can someone who is inferior offer advice? I must surpass you if I am to offer aid."

The pressure was in serious danger of becoming an ache. "But don't ministers normally handle running the country? Very little dueling?"

"Well, there was the Warrior Prime Minister but no, not in recent times. Tell me how I may prove myself worthy, then?"

"Help me, please. Accounts, tax records, I don't know how to make sense of any of it." She opened a desk drawer and pulled out the reams of parchment they had been able to salvage from the Imperial Palace. Some were charred around the edges, and all were an impenetrable line of numbers and names that made no sense to her untrained eye. She handed them to him.

He studied them, alternatively frowning and humming and Byleth was left alone with her thoughts. She was Emperor of Adrestia. The golden circlet that was the sole concession to her new rank felt strange. The last few weeks had been an endless parade of meetings and the nobles that had survived the war scurrying to pay homage. Soldiers wearing Imperial red were mixed in among Alliance yellow and Kingdom blue. Bergliez was deferential, if not friendly. The dream of a united Fódlan was closer than at any time since the War of the Eagle and Lion.

She just had to figure out how to actually unite the thing and govern it without setting off a cascade of rebellions. And find Thales. And make good on her promise to do something about all the injustice and inequality she had seen. Her dad had meant only to protect her by keeping her so he ignored the world, but right now she would have taken on a dozen Beasts for a crash course in how the world worked outside of a mercenary company.

Ferdinand looked up. "Professor. I have good news and bad. The good news is that assuming that the Imperial treasury was not completely looted, we have enough gold to sustain the remnant of the Imperial Army on a war footing."

"That's good. Most of the Alliance would lose their minds if their taxes were going to the Empire. What's the bad news?"

He slid one of the record sheets to her. A series of numbers had been crossed out and replaced with much smaller numbers. "These are the estimates for the harvest. After...after Gronder, the estimate was reduced by around forty percent."

"I see." And she did. They had raged over the most fertile land in the Empire, trampling over newly-planted crops. It was brutal and desperately unfair, but there was a reason commanders preferred attacking enemy supplies to pitched battle. They had ensured that a siege of Enbarr would almost inevitably be successful and would have destroyed Edelgard's popularity as the population slowly starved. It had never come to a siege, thankfully, but the devastation remained.

He handed her another page. "There seems to have been some plans to import food supplies from Faerghus as tribute, but if Cornelia is truly an Agarthan, we must find an alternate supply and before winter. The Empire seems to have maintained surprisingly good relations with Brigid, so they may be willing to assist, but they are too small to solve our problem. Now, there is Dagda, but even staple crops would cost a premium."

"Meaning?"

He sighed. "Even if we eliminated all expenses but the essentials, to bring food totals to the original estimate and fight a war would bankrupt the Empire by the Pegasus Moon."

"So, we have six months give or take to find and defeat a shadowy threat that has dogged Fódlan since before the church was created, and Thales seems to have vanished now that he doesn't have an army to play with anymore." She rubbed her temples. "It's fine. I've already done twenty-two impossible things. What's a twenty-third?"

"That's the spirit! A true emperor must press forward despite the odds." He sobered. "If Cornelia is Agarthan, then she is our only lead to their location. We must liberate Faerghus, and soon. By the coming of the Ethereal Moon, at the very latest."

A little over three months. Three months to conquer a country that the most powerful military the world had ever seen had taken over by trickery and a coup. "We are going to have to muster every resource have. No one can remain behind, and even then we are going to have to have some of the most brilliant strategies ever devised." She shivered. She wielded the preeminent Relic, but sometimes she was reminded of just how little her power mattered. "And I don't imagine the usual raiding tactics will force Cornelia to engage in battle. She doesn't seem like the type to care about pillaging." A question nibbled at the edge of her mind. "You said Adrestia was originally receiving food from Faerghus. But even I know that Faerghus barely covers its own needs in a good year. How were they going to feed all those people?"

"Permission to speak freely? I don't think they were. I think Edelgard would have allowed a famine in a vassal realm to prevent one in her own. As cooperative as she has been, and as fond of her as you seem to be, do not forget how few scruples she has."

_I have not forgotten_, she wanted to say. But the truth was that sometimes she almost did. The frightened girl beneath the Palace, the woman she chatted with so easily when she had had tea with her, the emperor had used even Beasts to win her war, they were all the same person. "I will speak to her about it. Right now I have to meet with Shamir. "She forced a smile, and it felt too wide. "Thank you. You might make a fine Prime Minister yet."

It was a relief to escape the office she had commandeered out into the courtyard and training grounds where things made sense again. A group of soldiers led by Ashe and Leonie were practicing their archery and despite herself, Byleth felt a flush of pride when Leonie hit a bullseye. It had taken what felt like forever to convince her that she didn't have to be a perfect copy of Jeralt to be a great mercenary, but she had transformed into a fine archer, just as Ashe had become a fine lancer. It was a small taste of what she and Claude hoped the world would be like when their work was done—people from different nations working together and learning—. but she would take any scrap of optimism that she could get at the moment. If only everyone could work together so seamlessly.

Who said they couldn't? They would need novel tactics to quickly overcome the Dukedom. She and her students all fought differently and came from different places and yet they had turned the war around in only half a year. What if that was scaled to the entire army, not just her handpicked students and their personal guards? A force of infantry, archers, and mounted and aerial cavalry under the command of one officer. Each compensating for the weaknesses of their fellows. It would have to be organized carefully, entrusted to those whose discipline and commitment were unshakable, but it gave them the hope of victory.

She felt the gaze of soldiers and monks as she passed, different now. There had always been those who truly believed she was the Chosen of the Goddess and all but threw themselves at her feet, but now she had secular power as well. The Alliance and Kingdom citizens didn't bow, but there was a newfound respect in their eyes for the woman who had forced their hated enemy to abdicate. Claude must have been very pleased with himself, maneuvering her into taking the crown to save Edelgard's life. If he had his way, the crown of Faerghus and leadership of the Alliance would soon follow. It made her head hurt just think about. But whether the crown of Fódlan fell to her or she found some other competent fool willing to take it off her hands, someone had to do the hard work of rebuilding. Of making sure people didn't starve.

Shamir was in the stables, wearing a long cloak despite the heat. She had been dispatched to the ruins of Fort Merceus in the slim hope that examining the damage could tell them something useful about Agartha's mysterious weapons. ""Shamir?"

She nodded ever so slightly. "Byleth. Don't tell me you become one of those nobles who insists on her title."

"Byleth is fine. Did you find anything?"

"Nothing useful. A lot of stone reduced to very small rubble very quickly and we already knew that. But I did find something." She threw back her cloak to reveal the thickest scabbard that Byleth had ever seen, Thunderbrand's hilt barely visible. She unbuckled it and held it out gingerly. "I found Cyril's weapons as well, but they were safe enough to bring back the cart. " Pain flashed across her face. "I found their bodies, too. There wasn't enough to bring back."

"I'm sorry." She should say more, do something, but she didn't know what.

"Another partner dead. I don't believe in the Goddess, but Catherine…" She gripped Byleth's arm tightly enough to hurt. "You better make damn sure that her death matters."

"We will."

"Good." She released Byleth. "You should get that sword to Rhea. There's probably some rite she has to do."

Doubtless. And it would be a chance to ask Rhea about what Edelgard had said before the coronation. Edelgard had sounded as if she believed it, but it was but it was so different from the accepted story that her head spun. An accepted tale that included a Goddess who Byleth knew wasn't in the heavens. What she wouldn't give to have Sothis back for an hour.

The third floor was as silent as the grave. No one but Seteth, Flayn, Cyril, and the Holy Knights were allowed in Rhea's personal domain. And her. She knocked. "Rhea."

"Enter, child."

Rhea's quarters betrayed unmistakable signs of neglect. A thin layer of dust coated the furniture, and the sheets hadn't been changed since their return from Enbarr. Rhea herself sat in a chair facing the window, staring at the courtyard below where soldiers trained. Her visible wounds had healed, but without the episcopal robes and headdress, she still looked painfully thin. She turned her head and gifted Byleth with a small, sad smile. "In times past, the Emperor would often grace the Archbishop with a private visit. I never thought I would have one again. To what do I have the honor?"

"I'm not here in an official capacity." She looked around. "This place could use a good cleaning."

"I suppose so. Cyril was always so industrious about it. And I have had so little energy since my release. I suppose I should sleep, but I cannot. Not when those who have destroyed my kin and plunged Fódlan into darkness yet live."

The scabbard felt suddenly unbearably heavy. The sleep Rhea spoke of was one from which she wouldn't awaken, and Byleth was balancing her on the precipice between despair and survival and against the need for answers. Maybe Edelgard should have crowned a street performer instead. "Catherine and Cyril would want you to live on and be as happy as you can."

"Live on? I have lived on past more loss than you will ever know. With every death it becomes a little harder." She beckoned Byleth closer. "I can sense Thunderbrand. Give it to me, please. You shouldn't exhaust yourself carrying a weapon not meant for you and I…I wish to see her."

Byleth's ears perked up but she handed the scabbard to Rhea. Rhea pulled the blade free. It didn't glow with power, but neither did she show any sign of increased fatigue. She ran her fingers along the spiked edges of the blade as if she were caressing a child's hair. Something was wrong here. She had seen Rhea so angry that even she was frightened, but never with this sort of madness that mistook weapons for living things. What were the Relics? "Her?"

Rhea froze. "I misspoke in my exhaustion and grief. Forgive me."

"Rhea, please." She made her voice as gentle as she could. "I know that what the church teaches can't be the entire truth. I've heard such a strange story from Edelgard. Help me sort the truth from the lies. You're the only one who can."

She made a scoffing noise. "It's quite simple. Edelgard lies as easily as she breathes. Or have you forgotten the Flame Emperor?"

"I haven't. But she sounded like she believed it. She said she got it from her father and that it's been passed down from emperor to emperor since the beginning."

Rhea's head snapped up and some life returned to her eyes. "Did she now? Tell me this strange story, then, and I will tell you what I know."

Byleth told her, trying her best to recite it word for word. Rhea's eyes flashed and her fingers trembled, but she didn't interrupt. Byleth inhaled. "Was it an ordinary war? Did humans make those things?"

"It was no ordinary war." Rhea's voice was a whisper. "It was a massacre of my people. Nemesis was granted the same power you wield and he used it to slaughter my people until Zanado became the Red Canyon, wet with their blood. Only a few survived and they and their descendents were hunted until only a few of us were left to tell the tale and hide as best we could." She held up the sword. "The thing that crafted these was no human. Only a fiend would desecrate a corpse by turning its bone into a weapon."

Oh. Relics were...remains. Byleth retched and only her empty stomach kept the carpet clean. She had more blood on her hands than she could ever wash off, but there were depths even she had never sunk to. Desecrating a corpse was one of them. "The Sword of the Creator…"

"Is likewise, yes."

"Take it back then. Bury it with the honor it deserves."

"My dear, kind child." She put the sword aside to take Byleth's hand. "You must keep it. The only fitting tribute is using it to defeat those who orchestrated the massacre in the first place. Relics are used to keep another atrocity like that from ever occurring. In that way, what was intended as evil becomes a gift from the Goddess, just as the harvest is, even though humanity plays its vital role."

"And the rest of it? Crests and Agartha and all of it? And Sothis?"

"Sothis is the Goddess. You were chosen by her for great things. Whatever else, you must believe that. Don't let the rantings of a heretic trouble you." She drew back and Byleth could almost see her becoming the Archbishop again. "And now you know why the desecration of the Holy Tomb was an outrage demanding death. You mist know by now that Edelgard cannot or will not help you find the Agarthans. Hand her to the church for execution. Some crimes can only be cleansed by death."

Byleth turned away. Metodey had told the soldiers in the Tomb to take the bones. Even if she hadn't known where Relics came from, Edelgard had ordered or at least was willing to permit something terrible. She had been willing to kill an untold number of people to save her own. All the suffering she had endured could not erase that. And yet… And yet… She was also the person who had given up her crown and saved Bergliez, who had offered what help she could. "Attempt is not the same thing as commission. And even if it were, I choose mercy until I have no other option."

"But why?" You know what she—oh, I see." She laughed, not unkindly. "My dear child. I too know what it's like to love an emperor. It looks far sweeter than it tastes."

"Love? I don't—" Byleth swallowed her words. She didn't have a name for what she felt when she thought of Edelgard. The echo of her first infatuation, anger at being forced into battle, grief at seeing her suffering, a desire for companionship, fear of a knife in the back, most of all a wish that things could have been different. If it was love, it wasn't the kind that poets spoke of. She focused on what she could understand. "You were in love with Ionius? What happened?"

"I was ever so much younger than and near death. I had lost everything that mattered to me and a wonderful man saved me when I had given up on myself and humanity. He was handsome and brilliant and kind and little by little we let our walls down with each other. I even saved his life in return. I will always cherish that time of my life."

A sudden, terrible thought. "Edelgard isn't—"

Rhea looked as if she had tasted something terrible. "Don't be so melodramatic. As far as I'm aware, she's the daughter of minor nobility. Please, no more. Those memories are one of the few things that belong to me alone and will not help you in your duty. But do remember what I've said and don't let your heart be broken.."

"I won't."

"One last thing. Please, for the sake of the other survivors, don't share what I've told you. Not even with Claude. We were hunted almost to extinction once and unsated curiosity is a small price for survival."

"On one condition: let me clean your chambers."

The next two days were a slog of government minutia and endlessly revised plans for her new corps that kept Byleth from thinking of Edelgard or Relics almost entirely. Until she visited the training grounds.

A small crowd had gathered to watch two Imperial lancers spar. From the coins being passed back and forth, Byleth gathered that there was money being wagered on the outcome. The Blade Breakers had been like that, gambling on who the new recruit could beat and who he couldn't. Usually, it was a harmless bit of icebreaking and stress relief, but sometimes she and her father had had to separate any unhappy bettors determined to "motivate" the loser with their fists. She stood back, watching and waiting to intervene if things got out of hand.

She wasn't the only one. Edelgard stood in the shadow of one of the columns, almost blending into the stonework with her robes, Ashe at her side. She looked as if she hadn't slept well, her skin tinged with grey and her eyes shadowed. She looked like, well, a ghost come to watch the living make merry. A knot of pain formed in Byleth's gut despite her best efforts to push it down. She For all the crimes she had committed, seeing Edelgard diminished reminded her too much of those early days spent tending to her or that terrible flight from Enbarr. It was a thing that should not be that awakened a desire to hurt whatever had done this to her.

One of the lancers made a too-wide swing. His opponent sidestepped and countered in a fluid motion that ended with a blow to the head that echoed throughout the room. "Yield."

A murmur went up. A lot of people seemed to have lost a great deal of gold on the bout. One of them, red-faced and with the stench of alcohol clinging to him, lumbered toward the loser. "You little—you cost me two week's pay!"

"That's your fault isn't it, you Gloucester dog!" He huffed. "It wasn't enough to beat us? We have to bow and scrape to that puppet of a pretender?"

Byleth strode forward and every gaze in the room fixed on her. "Enough! Save your anger for Cornelia and the Dukedom. Since you're so concerned about your pay, you can go without it for another two weeks while you're confined to the barracks. Both of you. And if I catch either of you undermining the cohesion of this army, I will have you flogged. Do I make myself clear?"

The Adrestian soldier blanched. "If Emperor Edelgard were here—"

"I would have had you flogged and you would have counted yourself lucky not to be executed for treason." Edelgard stepped into the light. Despite her illness and abdication, she had managed to scrape together her air of authority. "Byleth is the emperor, and you will obey her with the same dedication that you gave me. If you think her a puppet and a pretender, then you insult me who gave the crown to her."

"Yes, Your Majesty." He looked at Byleth with a hangdog expression. "Sorry, Your Majesty."

Byleth motioned for one of the sergeants. "Take these two fools back to their barracks and notify their commander of their punishment. I suggest the rest of you disperse as well."

They did, until she Edelgard, and Ashe were the only people left at the training grounds. Byleth wanted nothing more than to slink against one of the columns. Her plan depended on unit cohesion, but the fractures between nations still ran deep, plastered over with the Crest of Flames and a coronation of dubious legitimacy. There were those under her nominal command who would jump at the chance to settle old scores and those who would always consider Edelgard the true emperor, waiting only for a word from her to plot a coup, even if it had no chance of success.

Ashe smiled as if the last few minutes hadn't happened. "The way you handled those soldiers was pretty impressive, working together like that. A little frightening though."

"Thank you. I think," Byleth said. "I just wish the rest of the army was as united."

"If there's any hope of it, it lies in the you, Your Majesty. I meant what I said: you are the only worthy successor that I could imagine. If I could not have victory, at least I lost to you."

Byleth tensed. They sounded uncomfortably close to her words in the throne room. "I will do what I must do: put an end to this war."

"We're going after the Dukedom next?" The relief on Ashe's face was obvious. "It'll be good to go back, perhaps see Gaspard lands again. I haven't been back, well, since Ailell. I hope you give me a chance to put things right. Everything I've heard of Cornelia suggests that she's a cruel ruler. With the harvest and winter coming, the people are going to need all the help they can get."

Edelgard's pallor deepened almost imperceptibly. So Ferdinand's hypothesis was correct. Byleth had known it was, but couldn't escape the twinge of disappointment. Another reminder that the Edelgard who had dazzled her so wasn't the only one. "I can escort Edelgard back. Stop by the barracks and make sure those idiots sober up. And Ashe? Stop torturing yourself for trying to do right by the people you were responsible for."

"Someday, maybe." He bowed and left.

"I feel as if I should apologize for such gross insubordination." Edelgard leaned against the column. "You're more merciful than I was, but I suppose I knew that already."

"No sense losing soldiers if I don't have to. It's going to take every able body to defeat Cornelia, especially if were going to do it before the Empire goes bankrupt or the Kingdom starves to death."

"I see." Her voice was toneless. "May I assume that you've spent part of your young reign acquainting yourself with our financial and agricultural situation?"

"I have."

"You know what I did to remedy that situation? Or rather what I was going to do before you captured me? "

"I do."

The silence stretched on for several moments until Edelgard was left shifting uncomfortably. "What? No condemnation? No 'how dare I?' No orders for my execution?"

Byleth shrugged. "I would rather hear your explanation before I pass judgment."

"What is there to say?" she asked in that same toneless voice. "The devastation at Gronder caught me unprepared. Thousands would have died no matter what I chose. I chose those I had the greatest responsibility for. Just as Ashe did."

"You could have bought food from Dagda." A cold certainty settled over her. "But you chose to keep fighting over saving their lives. As long as the hope of victory remained, nothing else mattered."

Edelgard looked down. "I won't apologize. Turning back would have been an insult to Bernadetta and everyone else who gave their lives for my dream. If I couldn't defeat you, then I certainly had no hope of unseating Cornelia when the time came and her subjects would have wished for death anyway." She passed a hand over her face. "Dammit, why couldn't I have been stronger? Why did Claude abandon his famous pragmatism and keep fighting even before you returned? Why didn't I know just how compatible our goals were? A political marriage to him would've been a small price to pay for having power beyond those… things. And if I could have had you, there is nothing I would not have done."

She raised her head, and clenched her fists as a tremor seized her. "Well, Your Majesty? What is my sentence to be? Do you regret saving the emperor with a heart of ice?"

She regretted that things were not simpler. She wished that it was someone like Ashe who drew her like a puppet on a string. She wished that virtue and vice weren't so hopelessly intermingled in one person that she could hardly tell where one ended and the other began. And she wished more than anything that her own hands were clean. None of which helped now. "No remorse?"

"I've never seen the point in self-flagellating myself over things that I have no power to change. You must move forward, not wallow. What purpose would my remorse serve other than making a few sanctimonious priests feel better?"

She thought of the day her father had returned, the horrified look on his face when he had discovered how she had found and defeated the rebels in his absence. "Remorse inspires us to do better."

"Ah, but Your Majesty. I will never have a chance to do better." She closed her eyes. "I wish that I could free them from Cornelia and from the suffering they have endured. Does that satisfy you? I sincerely hope that you succeed where I failed and make her death the long and painful one that she deserves."

Wheels turned in Byleth's mind as fragments of thoughts floated in her mind like ghosts. Edelgard was hard and cold. She was charismatic, and her Crests gave her strength far beyond the ordinary. She would cut a wide swath through any enemy unfortunate enough to meet her blade. Enough, perhaps, to grant them a miracle. "You know that only a token force will be remaining here. I will need the best to help me retake Faerghus. Including all those who have served as your guard."

Edelgard cocked her head to one side. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I would be a fool to leave you here without supervision. Even if I trusted you, I have just been reminded that you still have some hold on the Imperial army. My army. My absence might give certain people the feeling that they could do something very foolish. A ruler with sense would lock you away until she returned, don't you agree?"

What little color Edelgard possessed vanished and Byleth almost felt guilty. They could both be cold and hard when the situation warranted. "She would," Edelgard said. "I suppose I should be grateful I'm only to be imprisoned. Rhea likely calls for my head night and day."

"That isn't your punishment. You just said you felt no remorse, and if you don't I doubt leaving you alone with your thoughts will make you." She took a deep breath. This was either the stupidest idea she had ever had or the most brilliant and there would be no way to know which until it was far too late. "You will join me on the Faerghus campaign as my personal adjutant. Take my letters, manage my schedule, be my shield and sword—-axe, rather. Because keeping you here is not an option."

Edelgard stood, eyes wide, mouth agape, and all of her former Imperial dignity forgotten. "I can't—you just said you couldn't trust me."

"All the better reason to keep an eye on you. You said you wanted to help the people of Faergus. I am giving you that chance. Unless it was all just talk to make yourself feel better?"

Edelgard glared at her and Byleth was almost happy about it. Anything was better than the ghost. "You are an exceptionally confusing and frustrating woman."

"So I've been told." She allowed herself a small smile. "I thought that I wanted was your advice. But I think now that what I wanted was your help. To see if there was a brighter path where we could walk together."

Her eyes went even wider if that were possible. So she did remember what she had said on the edge of death. Byleth pressed her advantage. "You're probably out of practice. I'm running Caspar, Ferdinand, and Claude through axe drills tomorrow at nine o'clock. I expect you to join us. She looked Edelgard up and down. The robes served well enough for letting her move through the monastery in relative peace but it wouldn't do now._ Sothis help me. I don't want her like this. I want the woman who set the world on fire._ "I'll see about getting you some more appropriate clothing. See you tomorrow."

She exited the training ground and almost collapsed. Appropriate clothing? What had possessed her to say something like that? She barely remembered to change out of her armor some days. Where was she going to find clothing fit for Edelgard by tomorrow?

Byleth groaned. She knew exactly where to find clothing, or rather she knew who would. Suddenly the idea of sneaking down to the canyon and sleeping for another few months seemed extremely appealing.

She found Hilda in the stable, staring rather skeptically at her wyvern. "Don't look at me like that. I thought I'd talked Ferdinand into cleaning the stables today, but he's wise to all my usual tricks. Doesn't the professor know that I'm too delicate to muck anything?" She turned and a brief flash of pink colored her cheeks. "Hi, Professor!"

Some things never changed. "You are the least delicate person I've ever met. If you were half as diligent doing your work as you are getting out of it, you would have been top of the class."

"Being top of the class is no fun." She put on her best pout. "You're a great and mighty emperor now. Can't you have pity on little old me?"

"I could. If you do me a favor, I'll make sure you never have to do another chore while you're here ever again."

Ooh, a favor! How can I be of service?"

Byleth shifted awkwardly. Now that the moment was upon her, she felt like she had marbles in her mouth. "I need clothing. For a noblewoman who is going to be doing a lot of fighting. I'm thinking red and black. Something warm. And I need it by tomorrow morning."

Hilda stared at her. "Clothing, for a noble, by tomorrow? I know a mage who supports herself by creating clothes, but this won't come cheap."

"I have money. Not enough to make a difference for the war, but I've been saving up for one of Zoltan's blades. That should be enough, right? I mean I already have the Sword of the Creator and—"

Hilda held up both her hands. "Stop it, Professor. Your babbling is really scary. Not like you at all. Unless…" Her expression turned sly. "This noblewoman wouldn't happen to be a little over five feet tall and her measurements easily accessible by looking at the records for past students?"

Heat spread across Byleth's face. "I refuse to dignify that with a response."

"Oh, poor professor. You should just court her like a normal person. I won't pretend to understand what you see in her, but it would be a lot less stressful if you just told her how you felt."

"No!" Pure panic shot through her heart. "I barely know myself how I feel. And I can't trust her. You're supposed to be able to show things to the person you love that you would never be able to show anyone else. She would… I don't know what she would do." She straightened and forced her hands to her sides. "And anyway my job is to unite Fódlan. Courting her is the most divisive thing I can imagine."

"You wouldn't be the first ruler with a secret lover. Anything has to be better than watching you flail around. Yes, just like that." She smiled, and it was warmer than her usual. "I'll pay for the clothing and I'll pick something really nice. Favor for a friend."

"Thank you, Hilda," Byleth said and meant it.

Her dreams were filled with visions of clashing swords and axes when she slept at all, but Byleth made her way to the Golden Dear classroom at fifteen minutes til nine, exactly as she had as a professor. Claude, Ferdinand, and Caspar sat in their usual seats. "Edelgard will be joining us today in preparation for our Faerghus campaign. If you have any objections, let's get them out of the way now."

Ferdinand and Caspar were too shocked to say anything, and even Claude raised his eyebrows. "I'm all for risky schemes, but even I have to admit that giving the person who was trying to kill us a few months ago a weapon is pretty daring. Are you sure about this, Teach?"

"I'm not sure about anything anymore. But she wants if Cornelia and Thales dead, and that means that she's too powerful a resource to pass up." She closed her eyes and the smell of phantom smoke invaded her nostrils. "Fighting in this war isn't a reward for good boys and girls."

"Teach." He shook his head and swallowed whatever he was about to say but the softness in his eyes cut her to the quick. "I trust you."

Ferdinand looked between them, brows knit together. "I do not know what is being left unsaid, but if you trust her to follow you even knowing what you know, then I defer to your judgment as well."

"Er, what he said. My father is alive because of what the two of you did. Let's see what she can do without any fancy tricks."

Minutes passed, but there was no sign of Edelgard. Byleth's gaze alternated between the door and the small water clock on her desk. If Edelgard didn't come, then she would have no choice but to imprison her, and for far longer than the campaign. She would never be able to afford letting her predecessor out of her sight. _Come to me. I don't know how I feel about you or how I should feel, but I want you here_.

The chapel bell pealed. One. Two. Three. Four. Byleth bowed her head. She had tried, tried so hard to bring Edelgard onto her path, to walk with her. It seemed she had been chasing a shadow all this time. The woman she had talked to for hours was no more real than that thing in a mask that had desecrated the Holy Tomb. Five. Six. She would do what had to be done as promised.

The door opened and Edelgard stepped through.

She was... the only word Byleth could summon was _exquisite._ The black of her jacket and trousers was a stark contrast to her white hair and the pallor of her skin. Her blouse was a splash of red that forced the eye towards it, and she wore a red half cape pinned to her shoulders by silver eagles. She held an axe in one gloved hand as if it were a child's toy. Byleth's mouth went dry. She had forgotten how much power Edelgard had, not in her crown or in her Crests, but simply in the way she moved and was. She was like something from the time before Sothis, a ruling goddess of war who did not demand fealty because she did not have to.

Byleth stood rooted to the spot. She had been an idiot. This was no ghost of a infatuation, but something real and present. She wanted to run her fingers over the fine wool and feel the heat beneath, wanted to stroke her hair. To kiss her. It didn't matter in that moment how much blood was on either of their hands. She simply wanted, just as she had all those years ago. Maybe she had never stopped, but she had been too blinded by duty to see it. And now Edelgard, ruthless almost conquer, would be her companion night and day. Idiot.

"Your Majesty."

"Edelgard." It was a miracle that her voice sounded like human speech. "Shall we begin?"


	7. Interludes

_Claude_

He had just had to pick axes to cross-train with. Claude grunted as Edelgard's training weapon slammed into his wooden shield with enough force to rattle his teeth. His entire combat style depended on being too far away for the enemy to hit, and being forced into close quarters took adjustment. Edelgard was as relentless a sparring partner as she had been an enemy. Her blade never stopped, forcing him into increasingly wild dodges and parries to avoid defeat. He spotted half a dozen gaps in her defense where he could have ended the match with a single arrow, but Edelgard's relentless advance gave him no time to translate that knowledge to victory.

"Time." Byleth called. "You're improving, Claude. Watch your footwork. You're still too tense in melee."

"Try to relax while I've got a whirling dervish of death coming at me. Got it."

Byleth smiled a little. When she had come to the Academy, Claude had taken her blank expression as a challenge. He would make her smile just like he made everyone else smile and for the same reason: people who liked you were easier to manipulate. Somewhere along the way though, manipulation had fallen by the wayside and he made her smile simply because she did it so rarely. They could all use more reasons to smile these days.

She turned to Edelgard. "You did well, but you need to work on your defense. In a real battle, leaving yourself open like that is just asking for the other fighter's ally to kill you."

"I'm aware. I'll strive to improve." She cocked her head to one side. "Do you have any specific drills you want me to do before we set out?"

"Do you know the one from D'Aubry's _Combat Arts?_ He..." Claude only half listened as they launched into a discussion of axe technique too advanced for him to follow. He settled for watching them instead. He had wanted to find some way to spare Edelgard when they hadinvaded Enbarr but he was still having some trouble wrapping his head around the fact that that she was going to be fighting with them and practically joined to Byleth's hip while they liberated the country that she had subjugated in the first place.

"So you want to make the circles as tight as you can." Byleth held her arms out and rotated them as she her shoulders, looking a bit like a demented bird. Edelgard's gaze was intent on her. Clearly, he had missed a great deal of combat potential in focusing on the bow. "You want as little wasted motion as possible so you don't tire yourself out. Or leave yourself open. Your swing is so wide that it's easy for me to hit a vital organ if your attack doesn't connect."

Edelgard's face darkened, lost in thought. "So that's how I lost. I always wondered."

Byleth's face was expressionless. "That's how you lost."

"Thank you for telling me." Her voice was soft, earnest. Not the way it had been when she was making a speech to her troops, but more like it had been in the Academy on those rare days when she was something other than the princess who had to prove how superior she was to everyone. "Manuela tried her best, but it wasn't her forte and I was...too occupied with other things to be a good student."

Time to intervene before this turned into a recollection of all the times they tried to kill each other. "That's us. A regular second chance brigade. And when we win this thing, we'll show you how good we are at parties."

"And we will win this thing." Byleth inclined her head towards Edelgard. "I wasn't joking when I called you my sword. Claude and most of the rest of the Alliance will be focusing on the western Kingdom but you and I will be heading for the central and eastern provinces before linking up at Tailtean. We will be depending on Gaspard knights and what's left of the Galatea aerial cavalry. If you have any grudges against the Kingdom, now's the time to deal with them."

"Worry about their grudge against me."

"Ashe and Ingrid have assured me that their troops will behave." Her lips twitched but her eyes darkened until they were like the finest emeralds. "I had Ferdinand look up the law. An attack on a servant of the emperor is an attack on the emperor herself. Treason punishable by death. Is that not right?"

The air grew heavy. "Your Majesty is too kind. I still don't know why you guard my life more jealously than I do, now that you know all that I've done. Will you tell me why?"

Her hand traced the outline of Edelgard's side and her breathing was slow and labored. Edelgard's skin, usually so deathly pale, flushed pink. Someone should broken the tension, but any jibes Claude might have made died in his throat. Everyone in the Golden Deer had known about their stoic professor's incredibly obvious crush on the leader of the "enemy" house and many side bets had been lost over the year as to whether she would ever do anything about it. Then Edelgard had turned out to be the actual enemy, and Byleth had been as capable and dedicated a general as Claude could ask for. Now her guilt and her desire were all mixed together.

Edelgard's lips parted ever so slightly and she leaned into Byleth's hand. No wonder she had been so cooperative. If he were a kinder man, he would have teased them and told them to kiss. The war had destroyed his kindness. He was now the sort of man who would threaten a woman with reliving her imprisonment if it kept her pliant. His threats contained the the carrot as well as the stick, but he would do what he had to just as much as Edelgard. An attracted former emperor was that much more likely to keep her oath of loyalty. Maybe it would give Byleth something to think about beyond memories of a past that she couldn't change.

Byleth made a fist and dropped her hand to her side, and the tension evaporated. "Suffice to say that I find you useful. After all, we both want Cornelia and Thales dead."

"That we do," Edelgard said, her breath shaky. She stepped back. "I am ready to serve beside the rest of the All Fódlan Mixed Force."

Claude blinked. So did Byleth. "The what?"

"Your combined army. No one told me what you were naming it, so I took the liberty." She grinned. Actually grinned. "I'm rather proud of it."

"I was just going to call it the Flame Corps."

Claude gripped the closest desk to help him stifle a laugh. These two deserved each other with their terrible names. "Really? That's the best you can do?"

They rounded on him. "Let's see you do better," Byleth said.

Claude opened his mouth and then closed it. "I will. You just have to give me time."

Both of them still glared at him, but there was no real malice behind their gazes. This was how Fódlan and the rest of the world should be. The two emperors who had once stood on opposite sides of a brutal war working for a common cause. There would be no outsiders in that world because there would be no Us or Them. There would be less focus on revenging old wrongs and more on learning from each other to create a culture that contained the best parts of all people and broke this stasis that had held for as long as anyone could remember.

In that world, Claude could once more be kind.

_Ingrid_

"You're a filthy traitor." Raoul had never felt shy about getting in her face when he felt the need, and he was so close that his spittle landed on her furred collar. "Your father would be ashamed of you."

Pain like an old wound twinged in her chest. Her father was probably already ashamed of her. She had spent the five years of the war shoring up Galatea territory and keeping it away from the Dukedom instead of joining Rodrigue and the others in a war they had no chance of winning. She had come back to the monastery because she was a Golden Deer and they had promised to reunite. Then she had discovered that the professor was alive and Claude had an actual plan to free her and her countrymen.

She had come face-to-face with those countrymen on the field of Gronder. Dimitri, the rightful king all true knights of Faerghus had sworn to protect, was alive. And he was mad, striking down friend and foe alike in his need to slay Edelgard. _"If you are not with me, you are my enemy,"_ he had growled at her as he threw his lance at her pegasus. He, Felix, Sylvain...all of them had died that day. If she had stayed, it would have been her duty to die as well, just as it had been her duty to marry a wealthy man and save their family.

Yes, any true citizen of Faerghus would be deeply ashamed. "You'll have to be more specific."

"That monster of an Emperor! She killed our king, conquered our lands, oppressed our people. And not only is she still alive, you expect us to serve beside her?" His face was red and he spoke so quickly that his breath came in short gasps. "Honor demands she die!"

More than honor. Her heart demanded some recompense. Galatea lands had been too poor and distant for Cornelia to truly bother with them, but her taxes had been brutal and her soldiers killed or maimed anyone on suspicion of the slightest crimes. There were rumors of children being brought to the Royal Palace and never been seen again. All with the tacit approval of Edelgard von Hresvelg.

"We swore to serve Byleth. Byleth commands us to serve beside her." She had never had any of her friends' charisma, but she knew how to make her voice low and dangerous to force people to listen. "Dimitri's is dead. Byleth is our liege. If that's not enough for you, she's also the only hope of freeing our home. So don't speak to me of honor. If you can't do your duty, leave."

He roared and turned away. "You're right. Dimitri is dead. He would turn over in his grave to see you now."

Ingrid wandered through the monastery. She hadn't cried properly since hearing of Glenn's death, but the sense of emptiness grew stronger with each passing day. When she was a child, being a knight had seemed so simple, even if it meant going against what her father wanted. She would serve the king, and wise and kind Dimitri would fix everything that had gone wrong. She could be absolutely loyal to him because he would never give a cruel order. Felix's paranoia was born of exaggeration. If only she had the strength to break away from her father, she could be a new Kyphon.

Her feet carried her to the library, seemingly of their own accord. It was late, and only a few monks even bothered to come here now that there was no academy attached. Well, the monks and Ashe. He sat at the table furthest from the entrance, reading by a candle that had burned almost to a nub. There had been eight of them in the Blue Lions' advanced class. She and Ashe were the ones who had most wanted to uphold the ideals of chivalry that were the lifeblood of Faerghus. They alone had survived.

She cleared her throat and slid into the chair opposite. "Don't tell me you're rereading _Loog and the Maiden of Wind?_"

He looked up at her. His hair was neater, but he still had the same freckles that made him look far too young to be an officer and an easy smile that made her want to tell him her troubles. A fixed point in these chaotic times. "I'm trying to make sense of this treatise on government. All this talk of economic policy and legal precedent makes my head spin. Lorenz and Ferdinand tried to help, but they just made my headache worse. Can you help?"

"Alas, I'm barely more knowledgeable than you. Our lands are so poor that we would be a bad model for you."

"By—I mean Her Majesty tells me that there's nobody else to take over Gaspard lands. I have to know this stuff if I'm going to be a lord." He ran his hands through his hair. "It still doesn't feel real. That we're going back to the Kingdom."

"I know what you mean. I thought I had cut ties with everything in my old life when I returned to the monastery." Ingrid wished her mind and heart would settle. She wasn't normally given to excessive self-reflection, and being trapped in this morass of memory and regret was exhausting. She wondered how Ashe managed. They had never spoken of the battle in the Valley of Torment, but perhaps that was a mistake. He knew what it was for loyalties to conflict and for conscience to pull him in two directions. To abandon his vows.

"If I may ask, do you ever regret serving House Rowe? Or coming here?"

His head snapped up. "What?"

"I don't mean it as a criticism." She took a deep breath. "Gaspard is a vassal to Rowe, but Rowe served the usurper. Your duty as a knight is ambiguous at best. Just as my own duty is ambiguous. I should kill Edelgard to avenge Dimitri and Faerghus, but she may be useful in freeing the Kingdom and Byleth ordered me to protect her. So far I have, but it feels terrible."

He was silent for a long time. "I don't think that I was ever meant to be a knight," he said at last.

"But you're one of the kindest and most honest people I've ever met."

He blushed. "I don't feel very kind or honest anymore, but that wasn't what I meant. "He gestured to the books on the shelves. "The stories I've loved so much were about being brave and loyal to your king no matter what and doing great feats of arms. But me? I've always been happiest just handing gold to the poor and helping people get back on their feet."

"That's part of being a knight."

"Maybe so, but it should be a bigger part of the stories. I don't want to punish the guilty. I want to heal people and give second chances, like Lonato did. Like Byleth did for me. I should be hanged as a thief or a traitor, but I'm alive today because of their mercy." He trembled slightly and his voice rose enough to earn a glare from one of the monks. "So, yes, I regret serving Rowe. Not because I broke my oath to the Kingdom, but because I saw suffering and I did nothing about it."

"I see." It seemed like a passage out of one of their stories, but he was right. The tales always ended with the villain dying a richly-deserved death and all their evil works erased off-page. "And Edelgard? You've certainly been eager to protect her, even though she's responsible for that suffering." She buried her face in her hands. "Please, tell me how you stand being near her."

"Because she needs protecting. It's not my job to decide what she deserves. Maybe she'll do something and Byleth will decide she has to die. But as long as she lives, there is a chance she might be better. Just like I was better."

Ingrid couldn't help herself. "The Flame Emperor is going to have a change of heart?"

"I don't think it's likely, but a dirty little thief standing here wasn't likely either. I'll do everything I can to make sure she has the kind of chance that I had. And that makes me a bad knight."

She didn't have it in her to feel such compassion. She had spent too long been the one who kept her friends in line. She closed her eyes and saw Gronder, wet with their blood. Satisfying her vengeance wouldn't remove one drop of it. And that, she supposed, was her answer. She was a soldier who punished the wicked, but only to save others. She hoped Edelgard would face justice, but it was no longer her duty to see it done.

Mercy, she thought, was supposed to feel better.

_Rhea_

_Time healed all wounds._ The proverb was so old that it had been a cliché when Rhea had walked Fódlan as Seiros. It was a lie. She had been only a child, still learning her shapes and colors, when her mother had gone to sleep. She remembered poking at her comatose form pleading for her to wake up until Cichol had led her away by the hand. She remembered screaming when she saw what was left of her corpse, watching helplessly as Zanado was bathed in the blood of her siblings.

She came to the farthest corner of the tomb and took Thunderbrand from its scabbard. Salisse had been closest to her in age and had delighted in telling Rhea what to do, but had also been the one to chase away the monsters under her bed with a sharp stick. And Charon had had the gall to use her body as a weapon. She threw back the lid to one of the coffins to reveal emptiness. She placed the sword in the coffin as Salisse had once tucked her beneath the covers. "Rest now, sweet sister."

Her work was only half done. The plain iron axe was all that remained of Cyril. He'd been so awed and frightened by everything when he had first come to the monastery. He'd been half-starved. She had cooked for him herself and watched in delight and amazement as he had scarfed down her meager efforts. He had been so eager to do anything she asked, no matter how often she had told him that he owed her nothing. Her position was an impregnable wall between them, but she had loved him as the son she would never have. Now he was dead.

Macuil and Indech had abandoned humanity in disgust, but Rhea couldn't help but love them. They were like children, needing a loving but firm hand to check their base impulses. Some had been magnificent. Like Wilhelm.

_She was going to die here, surrounded by the bodies of her family. Blood coated her clothes. Everything hurt. She should have been stronger. Why hadn't she been stronger?_

_She became aware of the sound of mailed boots, trading carefully among the carnage. A man in a black cloak and armor, his eyes the color of lilacs. He was one of Nemesis' men, though not one of the ones that had spilled blood today. "What have we done?" he whispered. "They were supposed to make us kings, not monsters."_

_He was so lost in thought that he almost tripped over her. Rhea fumbled for the knife at her belt. She had no hope of victory, but at least she could die fighting. She slashed feebly at him. He turned and caught her wrist in a single motion. His eyes widened in shock as he took in her hair and ears. "You aren't dead?"_

_"No. You have failed." Her voice was a croak. "For the moment."_

_"I didn't know what they were going to do. You have my word." He took a flask from his hip and offered it to her. She turned her face away. "You have to recover your strength," he said. "You have to make them pay."_

_Yes, she did. She would make Nemesis pay for this atrocity, stab him and watch as his eyes widened in terror knowing that he was as helpless as she had been. "Help me sit." _

He had nursed her back to health. It had taken her a week to be able to walk on her own and far, far longer than that to believe that this bandit didn't plan to murder her for her blood and bone. He wanted to be a king, he had said. But Nemesis, with the power he had stolen was busy forcing towns to pay fealty to him and burning those that didn't. The Sword of the Creator made him unstoppable. They would need more than an army. They would need a Goddess.

_There were so many sick and wounded. Dozens of people who even the most skilled healers had abandoned to death. She stopped at the nearest one, a child no older than she had been when her mother went to sleep, covered in sores. She knelt down and summoned healing power. She had seen her mother do such things many times, and she closed her eyes to summon the memory. Heat spread through and out of her. The sores vanished. She watched as the child was slipped into her mother's arms and grief stabbed her heart. "I am Seiros," she said. "A servant of the Goddess who once walked this land. I can save you, if you listen."_

_They knelt before her, promising the kind of obedience they had once promised Nemesis. She found Wilhelm afterwords. "I gave them a miracle. They'll follow you now."_

_"No," he said with a smile. "They'll follow us."_

And they had. The little fishing village where she worked most of her miracles became the great city of Enbarr. Thousands flocked to their banner, soldiers but also merchants, artisans and more ordinary people than she could count. Churches sprang up. Immaculate One, they called her. The Goddess had returned to her home in the sky, but if they were virtuous and did as they were told, she would return. It wasn't even a lie, really. If her mother wasn't a goddess, there was no such thing, and she would come back. Once Felt King Nemesis was dead. But something would have to replace his bandit kingdom.

_It felt as if the entire population of Enbarr had crowded into the church. Wilhelm paced back and forth in the private chamber adjacent to the nave, the white robes he wore for the occasion swishing behind him. "Stop it," she said. "You're making me nervous. This is what you wanted. You'll be so much greater than a king. This will be an empire to last a thousand years."_

_"You think so?"_

_"I know so." She took his hand. It was far larger than hers and calloused with a hundred battles, but it was warm and strong. "Now, come, Emperor. Your subjects await."_

Even so, building an empire while deposing a tyrant was the work of decades. They constructed fortresses and liberated dozens of settlements, but Nemesis, his Elites, and their accursed weapons were always there to stem the tide of victory. The ravages of time had no effect on her, but every year Wilhelm grew a little slower and his beard a little grayer. Until one day, the blasphemers ambushed him while she was on another front and his strength failed him.

_She rushed into the Imperial tent as fast as her legs would carry her. Wilhelm lay on his bed, stripped to the waist, eyes glazed over and his skin already the color of a corpse. He craned his head as she entered. "Have you come to tell me goodbye, old friend?"_

_No. No. She had lost too much already. She came to him. "You won't die. I've performed a hundred miracles. One more is nothing."_

_"I'm afraid that this is beyond anything your power. You must defeat Nemesis without me."_

_"Oh, to the flames with Nemesis." She took his hand with all the strength she could muster. Her savior, her ally. They had shared a vision for the world together and in him she had found a reason to live for more than vengeance. "I forbid you to die, Wilhelm. I forbid it!" There was a word for what he was to her, and she hadn't realized it until just that moment. Tears fell freely down her face. She had thought that such soft feelings had been destroyed at the Red Canyon, but they hadn't. "I love you."_

_His laughter turned into a coughing fit. "You have impeccable timing, as always. But I think that I love you too."_

_Well, then. She must save him. There was a way. Nemesis and his men were immune to time or so it seemed. Even a small amount of Nabatean blood could grant someone great power or bring them back from the edge of death. And that blood did not have to be stolen. She took the surgeon's knife and a bowl from the table._

_"Seiros, what are you doing?"_

_"What I must." She drew the knife across her skin. The pain was sharp, but nothing to the reward. She collected the blood in the bowl and when she had enough, she offered it to him. "Drink, my love," and live."_

And for another tweny-five years, they had been happy, deliriously happy. Her siblings and niece had found those that they too trusted enough to grant Crests and the tide of war turned in their favor. She and Wilhelm crafted a nation and a church by day and shared a bed by night. Even the necessities of diplomatic marriage and heirs did nothing to dull their joy. When he had fallen from his horse and died unexpectedly, she wasn't able to eat for three days.

But Lyceus and all those who came after him had needed guidance. Nemesis had at last fell on the Tailtean Plains, and her mother was avenged. Fódlan was united. Seiros died, and Rhea assumed the first of many identities and did all she could to ensure that the hard-won peace would survive until she could restore her mother. Six years ago, that goal had seemed tantalizingly close. Chance had allowed her to create the perfect vessel for her mother and chance had brought the vessel back. A Hresvelg had come to the Officer's Academy for the first time in a generation.

And then that Hresvelg had marched into the Holy Tomb, intent on desecration and sacrilege, and Rhea's world had collapsed. She'd had nothing to do but wallow in her thoughts for the five years of torture. Every mistake she had made in a thousand years replayed in her mind. The church she had created was a shell of itself, the myth she had created to maintain order had led to men and women being bred like livestock. Her mother had dwelt within the vessel, but instead of remembering she was and returning to a world that had needed her more than ever, she had granted her power to that vessel and vanished. And the vessel was in love with Edelgard, no matter how much she denied it.

Rhea ought to have killed the heretic. She was still not what she should have been and she would never recover her full strength without a healing coma, but Ede was only one girl. Some of the Knights still followed her commands unreservedly and would gladly do the deed. And yet, Rhea stayed her hand. Because she mattered to the vessel. To Byleth. Byleth had no soul of her own but she aped life the way a pet aped its master. Things could not continue like this forever. Mortals were not meant to channel divine power. Someday either the Crest Stone would break or what remained of of her mother would overtake Byleth's facsimile of a soul. Until that day, Rhea would tolerate even Edelgard because Jeralt's stillborn babe deserved far more than Rhea could give.

She spared a last look at the caskets. It would have been easier if she hated humans, it there had been no Wilhelm or Catherine or Cyril or any of them. Love left chinks in her armor and made her realize what she missed now that they were gone. She lacked even the work of Archbishop to fill her days and was once more the frightened girl of Zanado who had nothing but vengeance.

When that vengeance was complete, she would return here and sleep as her mother had done. She doubted she would wake.


	8. Role Reversal

Edelgard remembered little of her exile in Faerghus: flashes of staring out a window, sneaking to the stables to ride a horse, her uncle when he was still her uncle putting his hand on her shoulder and telling her that he would explain everything when she was older. She had left most of the pacification to Cornelia aside from the occasional rebellion that had raged too long for comfort, and those campaigns had been during the height of spring and summer and she had seen more of her command tent than the countryside.

Which was to say that she had forgotten just how cold Faerghus was at night.

She shivered and stamped her feet. The wind bit through her coat and the autumn frost crunched under her boots. There was a joke in the Imperial Army that adjutant was just a nice way of saying "the bootlicker who got stuck doing the things nobody else wanted to do." She had just spent the last forty-five minutes delivering orders to the sentries. The Adrestians had been grateful, even fawning, but one of the Alliance soldiers had made her throw her packet because he didn't want to get within ten feet of her. They had their reasons to be angry, but did they have to be so petty? At least she could sleep now.

She ducked into the tent she and Lysithea had been assigned. It was nothing compared to what she had used on campaign as Emperor, but as long as it kept out the accursed wind she didn't care. And Lysithea was one of the few people willing to share a tent with her. Lysithea sat atop her bedroll, knees curled to her chest, reading by candlelight. Edelgard clicked her tongue. "You should be in bed. We have a long day tomorrow."

Lysithea glared at her. "I'm not a child who needs to be told from to go to sleep." She yawned. "But you do have a point. We have a long day of marching ahead of us, and Byleth wants to see me first thing in the morning about taking temporary command of some extra mages. Something about Lorenz getting into a shouting match with one of the lieutenants."

"I'll be seeing her as well. I need to get an early start on her correspondence." Anxiety settled in her gut, which was ridiculous. It was the duty of an adjutant officer to serve her commander however was needed. She had sworn to do whatever was necessary to defeat the Agarthans. Whatever pride she possessed had been sacrificed on the altar of her ambitions when she had become the Flame Emperor rather than run them through with her axe.

No, it wasn't being a servant that unsettled her. It was Byleth herself. Ever since the day she had commanded Edelgard to serve as her adjutant, she had behaved strangely. Most of the time she was distant, even cold, but then her eyes would flash with some emotion Edelgard couldn't discern. She had always prided herself on her ability to read people, and Byleth being an enigma frustrated her to no end.

She flinched. That wasn't it either. It was that Byleth had been friendly, even warm in her way, after Enbarr. Edelgard had been her enemy, but she had still defended her from Rhea and given her her favorite tea when she had learned she must abdicate. It had seemed either a dream or a sadistic trap, but it had been so long since she had known even ordinary kindness that she had become as addicted to it as sweets. And now, something had changed and she didn't know what to expect from meeting to meeting.

They readied for bed. Lysithea put her books and candle to one side, but made no move to extinguish the flame as she settled down for the night. Edelgard raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you worried about a fire?"

"Enchanted," she muttered, already three quarters of the way to sleep.

Still, enchantments failed. Her youngest brother Ludwig had emerged from the experiments with the mind of a toddler. The country house where he had been secluded had been stuffed with enchantments and he had still found a way to wander off and drown himself in the river. She reached over and extinguished the candle. A pleasant darkness settled over them.

Lysithea sat upright. "What did you do that for?"

"Safety. And I sleep better in the dark."

"You do? Even after—well, I find it a little more restful to have a small light. Nothing unusual about that, is there?"

"I suppose not"." Suspicion floated across her mind. "Lysithea, are you afraid of the dark?"

"Of course not! Only children are afraid of the dark. I just sleep better with a light. But since you sleep better without it, I can go without it too."

"Really, I can just cover my head..."

"No, I insist! You've had a rough few months and it's only right that I accommodate you." Before Edelgard could say anything else, she shoved the candle into her bag. "Goodnight, Edelgard."

The nightmares came for her that night. Knives cut her flesh even as she screamed and begged to know what she had done wrong. Her torturers laughed at her and called her a weak little girl. She called for her father and they laughed harder. He had been unable to rescue her when she was in the Kingdom, and he couldn't save her now. Her siblings screamed too. But there was only the knives and the terrible, choking fear._ I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

Her eyes snapped open, but panic pinned her to the ground even as cold sweat drenched her clothes. Her breath came in ragged gasps. The dungeon and the tent blurred together into a prison world for her alone. Her siblings' screams mingled with the howl of the wind outside. The knives cut her arms with long, deep slashes and forced whimpers from her despite her best efforts to stay quiet.

She wasn't sure how long she hung between worlds, but little little she felt her bedroll instead of a stone floor and saw Lysithea's white hair where there had been only darkness a moment before. Lysithea held her gently but firmly as her screams subsided. "It's all right, Edelgard. You're in the Kingdom with me and the rest of the army. You're safe."

Edelgard shrank away as much as she could. Lysithea and Byleth had seen her in a much worse state, but the aftermath of her nightmares would never not be humiliating. "I'm all right. Please, you can let go."

Lysithea drew back. "Is it okay if I light the candle?" Edelgard nodded because it seemed selfish not to and Lysithea was bathed in a dull glow. Her eyes were shadowed and her hair was a mess as if she hadn't slept at all. "There's some water in my canteen if you need it."

Edelgard nodded gratefully. The water wasn't fresh, but it didn't taste like it had been there all night either. Focusing on that was infinitely preferable to talking about her night terrors. Lysithea hadn't slept. She had asked for the candle as soon as Edelgard was stable. "Are you afraid of the dark?"

"What? No, of course not. Only children are afraid of the dark." Then, in a smaller, younger voice, "The laboratory was so dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my face I couldn't see Glenda when she died. That's her ghost, out there in the dark."

Edelgard put her hand down next to Lysithea, not touching. She wasn't certain she wanted a hand in her own, but the warmth of a friendly person nearby was almost comforting, and she hoped it was the same for Lysithea. She hated that she still needed comfort after all these years. She had a duty to make sure that she had some purpose for surviving when so many had died in her stead, but on nights like tonight she was little more than a glass figurine, cracked in a hundred places and needing only the lightest touch to fall apart. "This is horrible."

"You said it." Lysithea laughed, a hysterical cackle that filled the tent until Edelgard was laughing too, spewing forth the poison that they both had been injected with long ago until exhaustion reasserted itself and she could barely move.

"We should try to sleep," Lysithea said, "but I never sleep when I'm like this."

"Sorry. I should have warned you. I wish there was some cause, something I could do to avoid these accursed nightmares. I feel like such a child, waking in terror."

"And I wish that I wasn't afraid of the dark and heard ghosts." Lysithea found her hand and took it this time. "Now we have another reason to kill them, for making us such horrible roommates."

As predicted, neither of them went back to sleep, but they dragged themselves out of the tent at reveille regardless. The early morning cold was even more bitter than it had been the night before, and Edelgard pulled her cloak more tightly around her. Soldiers lumbered towards the mess tent. Adrestians, Alliance, Kingdom refugees, all wore red and silver emblazoned with the Crest of Flames. Edelgard stopped. She had long dreamed of a united Fódlan. Many in the Empire had. But for her it hadn't been a craving for faded glory. Commoners from Adrestia and Faerghus had more in common with each other than with the nobles of either nation. The true dividing line was not some artificial border but the one between those who used their privileges to oppress and their victims. She was supposed to have been the one who smashed those walls and helped people to throw off the chains the church and nobility had forged for them. Instead, Byleth had brought them together.

She could feel their gazes on her as if she were some animal in the menagerie. Curiosity. Hatred. Sympathy. She wished for the anonymity of her clerical garb and protection of Lysithea or Ashe. If wishes were pegasuses...Edelgard kept her gaze fixed ahead and lengthened her stride even as the gossip swirled.

"Why is she here? I thought Cornelia being in charge was her doing."

"I hear she can set people on fire just by looking at them. Annihilated a whole army that way."

"The Enlightened One ought to have chopped off her head and put it on a pike as a warning to the other heretics."

Edelgard entered the white tent at the center of camp. It was even less lavish than what she had had on campaign. Byleth sat at a rough wooden table, alternating her attention between a bowl of soup and a towering stack of papers. As ever, she wore plain black leather armor without insignia and even the circlet had been dispensed with. Her pale hair was lightly touseled. Edelgard watched fascinated as she ate and read. Even her mundane movements were almost inhumanly fluid. Not for the first time, Edelgard wondered just who held her life in her hands and what the power she wielded truly was. A demon who didn't act like a demon touched by a goddess who didn't exist.

Byleth looked up and her gaze was so intent that it sent a jolt through Edelgard's body. A demon who didn't act like a demon and who seemed to see all her fears and hopes, even those that should have been burned away by the war.. But then the blank stare returned, leaving Edelgard feeling adrift. "You look terrible."

"I slept poorly. It's nothing to concern yourself over, Your Majesty."

Byleth frowned. "Of course it's my concern. Lack of sleep is the most dangerous thing in the world for a soldier. Have you eaten?" And without even waiting for an answer she pushed the bowl toward Edelgard. "Eat. As you can see, I've already got enormous stack of paperwork to get through. I can't have you falling apart on me. Would you like some tea?"

Edelgard could only nod, bewildered. The soup was delightfully warm, filling up her insides. Byleth busied herself with the tea set and the familiar, comforting scent of citrus soothed Edelgard in a way more calming teas never could. Through it all, Byleth barely looked at her. So this would be their relationship, such as it was, from now on. It shouldn't bewilder her so, this mix of kindness and coldness and intensity. But she was. She missed those early days when she had expected death and been met by softness. Perhaps Byleth had been shocked and horrified to learn that the ice-hearted Emperor had actually done harsh things in pursuit of her victory. Yes, that was probably it. She had forgotten who she had saved, but it was too late to execute her and she was too useful to throw in a dungeon.

That didn't quite feel right. She had witnessed Byleth's rage from behind her mask at Remire and again when that mask had come off in the Holy Tomb. Her expressions had been muted, but her quiet fury had been unmistakable.

Byleth didn't speak again until Edelgard had had her fill. She brushed the plates to one side and replaced them with a stack of letters. "Nobody told me how much reading was involved in being an emperor."

"Paperwork is the true burden of the crown."

"Well, it's a good thing I have you to bear it in my stead."

Most of the missives were routine matters that required perfunctory answers that Edelgard could have written in her sleep, but one stood out. A rough hand had scrawled a letter on parchment.

_Professor Byleth,_

_We have never met, but my sister Cassandra served you faithfully for many years. I hear I should be calling you Your Majesty. I can't imagine how you managed that, but I can only be grateful and hope the rumors are true that you will free us from that monster. We never gave up the fight against her, not even when Prince Dimitri died. If you want allies, House Charon, weak as we are, stand with you. I will be remaining in the village of Coldwatch, should you wish to reply._

_Count Hector Gregory Charon_

She passed the letter to Byleth, who read it with a frown. "House Charon. There's been no word of a messenger. It seems like a trap to me, and an obvious one."

"It does, doesn't it? Catherine's death wasn't commonly known. Something is very strange." She scowled as a memory broke to the surface. "Stubbornness runs in the family. Charon finally accepted Cornelia, but it was after I led troops against him, and even then I thought he was going to run off to Fraldarius or Gautier lands. I never came to Coldwatch but he still gave me some of my bloodiest battles." She had gotten a lance through the chest and almost died. Half the province had been razed in their miniature war until Hubert had captured the lord's young daughter as hostage for good behavior and sent her to a finishing school in Enbarr. "He would be a powerful ally if this weren't a trap."

Byleth's brows knit together. "If. But Cornelia probably has some nasty Agarthan surprise waiting for me." She snapped her fingers. "I suppose you and I will just have to spring that trap, then."

"What?"

"If Cornelia does have something planned, I'd rather she do it in a place and time where I know she's going to do something. And if this is genuine, I need all the help that I can get."

"You do realize this plan could get you killed, correct?" And Edelgard as well, though that part seemed less important.

"I know. That's why I'm taking the Dragon of Adrestia with me."

"Dragon of—oh." Her face warmed. "No one actually called me that. It was 'Flame Emperor' to my allies and a variety of less polite terms to my enemies."

"Then you are in dire need of a new nickname." Her lip curved upward slightly. Now we'll see if we're as formidable a team as I think. Or I'm an idiot with a hidden desire to get us and a lot of good men killed. Bother it all. I'm no good at jokes."

Well, even morbid jokes were an improvement. "Then I will do all I can to see that you come back alive."

Byleth's expression softened. Her hand hovered over Edelgard's. There was no comfort in this almost touch. She felt like a bowstring taut and ready to fire. They had touched each other countless times since Enbarr, but it was always Byleth tending to her or for comfort. This would be for no reason at all. Still, Edelgard wanted that hand in hers and for the frost in Bylethls eyes to never return.

Byleth turned away, and Edelgard tried her best to smother the flash of disappointment. "That reminds me. I have a gift for you."

She rummaged through the chest by her bedroll and produced a sheathed dagger, its hilt emblazoned with the arms of Blaiddyd. It was the dagger she had received when she was here as a child, that she had used to defend herself against Kostas and that she had pulled on Claude in a panic. "I'm trusting you with an axe. It seems foolish to keep this." She held the dagger out to Edelgard. "How did you come to have a dagger with the royal coat of arms?"

Edelgard's fingers closed around the hilt. She wished she remembered, but her exile remained a jumble of sensations without context. Perhaps she had met Lambert and he had given it to her. She remembered a blonde boy with delicate features playing with it. A child's words whispered through the air._ Use this to cut your path, El. No matter what happens._ "Someone I loved very much gave it to me." She must have loved them, if they used that childhood nickname. Robbing her of the memory was yet another thing the Agarthans would pay for.

"I'm sorry."

"It was long ago. Another life, when I was still capable of such tenderness." She couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice. She had pushed down every part of herself that wasn't necessary for the war: her sweet tooth, her fondness for cats, her talent for impressions. Even her infatuation with Byleth had been subliminated. She had donned the mask of Emperor, but during the last five-and-a-half years, it had fused to her face and she could no longer remove it. "Despite your mercy, I'm afraid only half of me survived the war."

"No," Byleth said with such vehemence that Edelgard was taken aback. "If that were true, I would know what I think about you. You're confusing,"

"Well, so are you."

Now it was Byleth who seemed taken aback. "Hmph. Well, we won't figure each other out standing here. Tomorrow, we ride for Coldwatch. Make sure you get some sleep. I can't afford a groggy bodyguard."

* * *

"I remember reading about this region of Faerghus. The growing season is terribly short." Ferdinand didn't turn his head as they rode, but Edelgard could feel the accusation emanating from him. "Nothing grows here but millet and barley. The only place poorer is Galatea."

Edelgard's jaw clenched, and she tightened her hand on the reins._ What would you have done, noblest of nobles?_ she wanted to scream._ Would you have watched the children of Aegir starve?_ But of course she knew what he would have done. He would have sued for peace no matter the terms and rendered Adrestia so in debt that her dreams would have died for a generation or longer. Another generation of those who bore Crests being bred like cattle and those without being thrown in the rubbish heap. Those who had already died would have died for nothing and she would be no better than a murderer. The only way to purify the blood that had been spilled on both sides had been to press forward.

Still, she couldn't deny the truth of Ferdinand's words. It had been warmer the last time she wrote through these plans to do battle, but the grass was scraggly all year round. It was a miserable hand-to-mouth existence in this part of the world. Pegasus fertilizer might have helped, but Rufus had been too busy chasing skirts to bother governing. They deserved better than what they had, better than what her war had done to them. Perhaps she could suggest fertilizer subsidies to Byleth. No, it would be better coming from someone else. She could suggest it to Lysithea, who could suggest it to Byleth.

They came to the crest of a hill, and Edelgard nearly doubled over in her saddle. The fields were spread out before them. Bare as they were in winter, even though it should have been in the midst of the harvest. Edelgard sniffed. The scent of sulfur, of dark magic, lingered in the air. "The Agarthans were here. Recently."

Byleth galloped ahead and Edelgard raced to follow. War was horror, but Agarthan magic was as close to the flames of torment as could exist. The stench grew stronger as they approached the village until Edelgard was greeted with a sight that had featured in her nightmares for six years.

Villagers poured from their homes, screaming in terror. There were other screams too, other villagers. Their eyes were white and unseeing, the veins on their face popping out like spiderwebs as they yelled and cackled and howled for blood. They had picked up farming implements, knives, even sticks as they chased down their friends and neighbors. In an hour or two, they would be sane again, but it didn't matter. An hour or two was all that had been needed to reduce Remire to a husk.

She had watched it all from behind the mask, wishing desperately that this had been the Black Eagles' mission so she could have had an excuse to take vengeance. But this time... well, as she was constantly reminded, she wasn't Emperor anymore. Edelgard leapt from her horse, drew her axe, and waded into the fray.

The magic made the villagers strong, but they were still untrained civilians. Edelgard checked her blows and hoped it was enough. She was aware of Byleth and Ferdinand beside her doing the same and of the stares of the horrified, disbelieving soldiers they had brought as support. The screams never stopped, and she saw flames out of the corner of her eye. A villager had taken shelter behind a makeshift barricade, and her neighbors were doing their best to burn it down. In a few moments, they would succeed. Edelgard ran towards her.

Another villager dashed in front of her, chasing a crying child with a butcher's cleaver. "Mama, don't hurt me!" The woman ignored her daughter and ran on, gaining. One second more and the little girl would be dead. The smell of smoke grew stronger. There was no time to save both.

Edelgard charged forward, the full weight of her armor knocking the woman to the ground. "Run!" she said to the child.

When she looked up again, the barricade was wreathed in flame and burning flesh had been added to the sick bouquet of odors.

She fought on, doing what she could against the rising tide of victims and hoped more were saved than lost. Sometimes Byleth was at her side. They were finally fighting together, but there was none of the glory or romance of her childish fantasies. The Sword of the Creator remained in its scabbard, but Byleth was just as potent with cold steel. She moved with clean efficiency from one villager to the next and only the thin line of her lips betrayed her anger.

"Where are they?" Her voice was clipped and cold even his battle raged around them. "The Agarthans stayed to watch last time."

If there was one thing Edelgard had learned about them, it was that they enjoyed watching their handiwork. She scanned the scene before her. There, to the east, half hidden by the trees, a cloak swirled. Byleth saw it at the same time she did and inclined her head. Edelgard understood. They were going hunting.

Edelgard summoned a bit of magic and one of the mages' escorts was dead before he hit the ground as she shredded his organs from the inside. A sharp jolt of pleasure shot through her. For years, she had dreamed of the day that she would be strong enough to break free from her tormentors. Well, she was weak, but there was a strength in the freedom this weakness offered. For Ludwig. For Cristina. And yes, for Jeralt and the people of Remire. For all those she had been unable to save.

"Well, long time no see," Metodey drawled as he stepped forward. "You're together! How charming."

Byleth held her bloodied blade in front of her, ready to strike. "Where is Charon? What's the meaning of this?"

"The count? Dead, of course. Suffer not a traitor to live, et cetera. As for the rest of them..." He smiled and bile rose in Edelgard's throat. "They're only cattle. Why not have a bit of fun and make you angry in the bargain?"

"Just when I think there's a limit to your and your masters' depravity, you surprise me," Edelgard said.

"Blame yourself, Flame Emperor. How many villages did you burn down in this province alone""

"That was war." She would not rise to his bait.

"I don't really see a difference. Especially when you were happy to use us. But it doesn't matter now. I come bearing a message from Lady Cornelia. She will do this hundred times over until there is nothing left of Faerghus. Burn the crops, drive men mad, anything to erase this filthy rag of a nation from history."

Byleth's answer was a slash. Metodey met her blade with his own as the rest of the Agarthan force joined him and the battle began in earnest.

She wasn't sure how long the endless chain of strikes and counterstrikes continued, but even as Edelgard felled one another took their place. Worse, Byleth was showing unmistakable signs of fatigue. She still parried every blow, but each was slower than the last. Metodey was only a competent swordsman, but that didn't matter when he had numbers and patience.

Finally, his moment came. Byleth parried a lance below from one of the infantrymen and sent him crumpling to the ground in a fluid motion that left her side and part of her back exposed. Time slowed as Metodey thrust. Byleth was going to die, distracted, not in a clash of wills to determine the fate of Fódlan, but to a petty thug in service to a sadist. Byleth who had saved her. Byleth who saw the same injustices she did and was going to use her power to do something about them. Byleth who thought she was still capable of tenderness and love.

Edelgard did the only thing she could think of and leapt in front of the blade. The sword slid between a gap in her armor, and hot pain filled her chest even as her arms and legs grew cold. Byleth roared and cleaved Metodey's head from his body. It was too good a death for him, Edelgard thought as she collapsed.

Byleth was by her side in a moment. "Stay with me," she muttered. Her hands glowed with golden light that warmed Edelgard and made the pain and the noise of battle seem distant. Byleth's voice was the only thing that was truly real. "You valiant idiot. You could have been killed."

"You would have died."

Her gloved hand, warm and solid stroked Edelgard's hair. Her voice was gentle, as it had been during the flight from Enbarr. It was almost worth being stabbed for that. "Then we are both valiant idiots. But I'll take care of you."

* * *

Edelgard hissed as Byleth swabbed her chest with disinfectant. Even the royal tent couldn't keep all the cold out and her skin burned. If the flames of judgment were more than a tale to keep believers in line, this would be how they felt. Worst of all was being exposed to Byleth's gaze. She was intensely conscious of the myriad scars she had earned in the war but also of the long, faded surgical scars on her arms and hands. She kept telling herself that Byleth already knew what she had endured and that she had seen her with far worse wounds after Enbarr, but it didn't bring the comfort it should have.

Byleth's gaze was focused as she worked. It must have been the scrutiny that unsettled Edelgard so. Scrutiny laced with an emotion so subtle that Edelgard couldn't read it. She only knew that Byleth's coldness had vanished for the moment. She had stroked her hair. Been gentle. She didn't know how long the thaw would last, only that she had enjoyed that softness and that now she was vulnerable before the most powerful woman in Fódlan.

Byleth hit a particularly sore spot and Edelgard flinched. "You don't have to do that."

"I don't want you to get an infection."

"No, I mean that_ you_ don't have to do it. I'm—"_ Your prisoner. The woman who tried to kill you. Responsible for more of this mess than I care to think about._ "I'm sure you have better things to do, Your Majesty."

"No, I don't." Her voice was brusque but not dismissive. "When we fought Miklan Gautier, Leonie was nearly mauled to death by the thing he became and I made a new rule. If someone got hurt protecting me, then I would patch them up myself." She glanced down as she grabbed fresh bandages. "You could have died."

"I've received far worse injuries than this. As you can see. You gave me more than your share of them." Byleth tensed and Edelgard winced at her mistake. Her position was precarious. She must never forget that, no matter how much freedom she was granted. "My apologies. "

"You gave as good as your got. If I resented every person who fought me in war, I never could have done my job." She looked up again and fixed Edelgard with that gaze that seem to see past all artifice. "But most people who fought me don't throw themselves in front of the blade for me later."

"I am, as you said, your sword and your shield. You required a shield." There were other reasons, some she could say aloud and some not. "Surely you must have been hired as a bodyguard on occasion? Have you never taken a blow meant for someone else?"

Byleth went perfectly still, and her lips parted. Her breathing grew harsh, as if she were trapped by some memory. "Only once. But it wasn't for duty. I'm not a knight who will throw my life away on command. Only for something that matters to me." She shivered. "You aren't a knight either, so why put yourself in harm's way?"

Edelgard chose her words carefully. "All my hopes and dreams for Fódlan rest with you now. If you die, then the horror of the last six years will have been for nothing. And I have always, will always, consider my life nothing in comparison to the future."

Realization dawned on Byleth's face. "There's nothing you won't do for your better world. Sacrificing your life, working with Agartha, it's all one piece." Her lips curved slightly. "I take back what I said. You aren't confusing so much as you can't be put in a neat box."

"Whereas you are more confusing than ever, Your Majesty."

"Edelgard." Her voice was so soft that Edelgard strained forward to hear it despite the protest from her wounded body. "Why do you always refer to me with my style? You must know that the others don't. And I heard you speak to your subordinates often enough that I know you didn't insist on your title."

"To make it real. So that I never accidentally say something that would inspire others to rise up against you." If she didn't, she might slip into a dream world where her vision wasn't dependent on someone else and those who cared for her hadn't all died, and her teenage infatuation wasn't simultaneously as close as she had ever been and more unobtainable than ever. Or a world where she had steeled her heart so completely that none of those things mattered.

"Then," Byleth said slowly, "would you do me the honor of using my name, at least when we're alone or with my students?" She pressed a fresh cloth to the wound. "You've earned that much."

She ought to demur. The gulf between victor and vanquished was not so easily bridged. And yet she remembered Byleth's hands in her hair, tender as if that white was something other than a marker of all she had lost. She had said that the war hadn't burned away all the soft things. It wasn't true, but perhaps it would be all right to play pretend for a little while just as she had played with the stuffed bear that she was far too old for.

"Byleth."


	9. In Times Past

Edelgard had hoped that Metodey's threat that Cornelia would raze Faerghus was mere bluster, but when she saw smoke rising from the third hamlet in former Charon territory she was forced to concede that Cornelia intended to reduce the Dukedom to ash. The ghoulishness of Remire and Coldtown hadn't yet been repeated, but that was little comfort when staring at children murdered in their beds.

Caspar stood in the ruins of the bedroom. He shook with rage, his skin pale except for two spots of red on his cheeks. "Monsters! They—" He picked up a toy horse and stared at it before throwing it against the wall with a scream. "I thought I'd seen everything, but this is just sick! I want to rip Cornelia to pieces."

For once, she and Caspar were in perfect agreement. "Then we should we join the others and get our orders." He simply stood there, still staring at the horse, so she pulled gently at his hand. "It's the next step to stopping this once and for all."

He exhaled. "I know you're right, but, well sometimes I'm jealous of how you can turn your emotions off like that."

She didn't know how to tell him that it was a skill honed in the dungeons beneath the palace. "Don't be."

He let her lead him outside. The sun bathed the ruined village in a soft glow that was macabre for the juxtaposition. Even the carrion birds that normally would have attended such a massacre were kept away by the dark magic. Cornelia had not merely murdered the villagers, she had drained their life like a leech.

Caspar was pale, his eyes shadowed like a corpse. "Why?"

"Because they are monsters who don't see us as people."

"No, I mean why..." He rounded on her and his mailed fist encircled her wrist with enough force to make he gasp. "Why did you think the church was worse than these guys? I was at Remire! And so were you, Miss Flame Emperor! You knew what they were and you worked with them!"

Edelgard tried to pull back, but his grip was too strong. She had always thought of Caspar as a bit like a puppy: well-meaning, a bit dim, and ultimately harmless. But the man before her was formidable in the way he trembled with rage. He demanded answers, and she had the sickening feeling that trying to encapsulate her manifesto would only end with him breaking her arm or worse. "The church was more powerful. I could never destroy them on my own and I needed _something_ that would put a stop to people thinking Crests are so important that they'll stand by while children are tortured."

He didn't let go. "Yeah? Well, your friends have child-killing down, so that really doesn't help."

"I never thought it would come to this." She had had her war all planned out. Allow Cornelia temporary control over the Dukedom in exchange for disposing of Dimitri, defeat Gautier and Fralderius and any other lords stubborn enough to refuse her fealty, use a mixture of carrot and stick to keep Gloucester in line, take Derdriu, unite the Alliance behind her, and use the combined might of Fódlan to finally rid the world of those who slithered in the dark. Cornelia wouldn't dare try to provoke her with showy atrocities while they needed each other. "I never imagined losing until you took Merceus, and I thought the Agarthans would be destroyed before I was."

He roared and released his grip so suddenly that Edelgard stumbled forward. "That's always been your problem. You get so caught up in your grand plans that you forget the people on the ground. Well, you lost and the Agarthans are still here and conducting crazy experiments and worse. They couldn't have done it without your help. So what are you going to do?"

She looked around at the destruction, the ruins of buildings, the corpses of villagers left where they fell. It wasn't her fault. She hadn't ordered this massacre or any of the others they had seen over the last few days. She had only accepted the use of an agent already in place years before Duscar, chosen the church that had shaped people's thoughts for a thousand years as a greater enemy than even the people who had murdered her family. If she hadn't, there would have been countless more Emille von Bartels and Miklan Gautiers crying out for vengeance down through the generations, asking why she hadn't done something with the power forced upon her.

The thoughts brought no comfort. "This is monstrous. I would have stopped it if I could have."

"I don't care. I asked what you were going to do."

That at least she could answer. "I'm going to kill them."

* * *

Byleth looked over Edelgard's shoulder as she finished the emperor's correspondence for the day. "I don't think_ quartermaster_ has that many Rs. You've been distracted for days now."

"My apologies Your Maj—Byleth. I'm merely anxious to engage the enemy."

"Caspar told me what happened."

Edelgard lost control of her quill and left a trail of ink across the parchment. "What?" She inhaled and exhaled, willing her racing heart to slow. Byleth had seen the mountain of corpses that the Agarthans had amassed and it was she who had knocked the Flame Emperor's mask from Edelgard's face. If she thought her responsible for these crimes, Edelgard would have already been struck down. "It was a difficult thing to see."

"Difficult to see what your handiwork led to?"

Edelgard turned in her chair, but Byleth wore the same inscrutable expression as always. "If you blame me, say so."

"Mostly I blame Cornelia, Solon, and all the rest of them." She sighed. "I was so angry with you, with the Flame Emperor I mean, when I saw what had happened in Remire. All that talk about how you weren't the same as Solon sounded like so many excuses."

"And now?" Byleth's fury had been palpable that day, a shock after over half a year with a stoic professor. It had hurt, not only in knowing that the wielder of the Sword of the Creator would not be her ally, but also the pain of a silly, infatuated teenager who knew that the woman who filled so many of her daydreams would likely kill her without a second thought if she knew the truth. "You must not hate me now."

"No. I don't hate you. I think that you thought this was the best way. Since I'm happy to make use of all your work conquering the continent, it seems foolish to argue." Her eyes hardened a bit. "It doesn't mean I don't think you miscalculated horribly, but I leave your conscience to decide your guilt."

Her conscience. It wasn't an organ she had considered much in recent years. Once she had decided that the least bloody path was that of burning the corrupt system to the ground, then doing whatever it took to end her necessary war became the only moral law. "Is my conscience another thing you think I haven't managed to burn away?"

"I think that if you had, you wouldn't care so much what I think."

"I've always cared what you think." Fire spread across Edelgard's face. She hadn't meant to say it aloud, but the tumult of the last few days had weakened her self-control. She wished desperately that Byleth would show more emotion or, failing that, that the ground would swallow her whole. Byleth had a knack for discovering the chinks in her armor and slipping through the gaps like a sword. "I—well, I imagine that Claude would say the same. If I have a conscience still, it demands I kill my former allies. So I suppose nothing has changed."

Ingrid entered the tent, sparing her from Byleth's response. Her face was red from exertion and she sketched only the most perfunctory bow. "Scouts have spotted soldiers in Dukedom colors spotted near Traitor's Gap, making straight for the village of Holywell. We have to stop them."

"I know the place." When she had decided to personally force Charon to submit, she had destroyed farms and ordered her men to confiscate as many goods from the villagers as they could carry to force him into battle. In the process she had become much more familiar than she wanted with every thicket and cliff. "It's an easy place to hide from aerial corps until you get to the Gap. You'll need a ground complement." Her hand went to the place Metodey had struck. "I volunteer."

Ingrid stared, then spluttered. "You? You can't be serious."

"I am extremely serious. None of us want this campaign of slaughter to continue." She glanced at Byleth. "I am your sword as well as your shield. Allow me to follow the dictates of my conscience."

That earned her a half-smile. "Well, when you put it that way…"

"You trust her with command? Here of all places? It's a miracle anything in this part of Faerghus is still standing after what she did to it."

Edelgard stood perfectly erect. It was one thing to be forced to lay her insecurities bare in front of Byleth or even Lysithea and quite another for this knightling to keep questioning her. "I have shed blood for Her Majesty. If I remember my tales of chivalry correctly, there is no greater proof of loyalty. I would offer to compare scars, but mine may shock you."

"Enough. I trust you both to cooperate as long as you have a common enemy and a common goal in stopping these atrocities. And I trust you both to rein in your tongues. I created the Flame Corps to unify this army, so you will work together in corralling these soldiers. Do I make myself clear?"

They nodded. At least Ingrid looked as much like a scolded student as Edelgard felt.

"Good. You'll each be taking a battalion. Ingrid, you and the soldiers from Galatea will scout by air. Edelgard, you and Ashe will take the Gaspard knights by land." She tapped her teeth with her fingers. "And I'll bring up the rear with the Imperial Guard. You aren't the only ones looking for a little payback."

Ingrid bowed. "I trust you, Professor."

"Good. I promise this is for the best. Go tell Ashe he's being deployed. Edelgard, a moment?"

Ingrid looked at her questioningly, but left and Edelgard could only stand silent and wait. The silence stretched and grew heavy and awkward. "Thank you for trusting me with this," Edelgard said at last.

"I am trusting you with this, aren't I?" she said as if realizing it for the first time. "Remember that the rest of the army will be watching you, judging whether or not I was a fool to treat you as an ally instead of a prisoner. Give them something to kill their suspicions forever." She winced. "I probably shouldn't have said that. You'll throw yourself in front of a sword again."

She stepped around the table until she and Edelgard stood face-to-face, close enough that Edelgard could hear her soft breaths. Her hand hovered over Edelgard's chest and her latest scar. "Keep yourself safe. I expect us both to return to Garreg Mach and your funeral would completely ruin the victory celebration." Her light, teasing voice cracked a bit. "Please. For my sake."

Edelgard was no closer after all these months to figuring out why her continued survival mattered so much to Byleth or why the coldness had thawed again, but it made her want to promise whatever foolish thing Byleth asked. "I will try," she said and left to find the knights.

Ingrid must have found Ashe already because he and the men of Gaspard were already saddled and prepared to leave. Ashe was thoughtful, but he smiled and nodded when he saw her. The rest of them stared at her coldly from behind their visors. That was fine. She could deal with cold. "I assume that you've been told your mission? Let's go."

"The woman who sacked Holywell now rushes to save it," one of the knights muttered. "The Goddess must have a sense of humor."

Ashe turned back to glare at him. "As if we were any better when we served Rowe."

The land was much as she remembered. Steep hills cut across and hardwood forests that housed enough game for the populace to scrape by when the harvest failed. The trees were all the stronger for Faerghus' harsh winters. This would have been the timber capital of Fódlan if more dared to make the trip, if the glut of scheming nobles concerned only with their own privilege didn't scare off every possible merchant. Another improvement that she would suggest.

Ashe brought his horse alongside her and glanced at the treeline. "The forest seems almost alive here."

"It is a good place for ambushes. Keep your eyes peeled."

"No, I mean that the trees seem alive." He shivered and suddenly seemed much younger than almost twenty-two. "Loog was betrayed here by his own generals. That's how Traitor's Gap got the name. I can almost feel his honor guard looking at me."

"Tricks of light and the mind that Cornelia won't hesitate to use against you. Calm down." Fog swirled around the tree roots, as if nature supported the ghost story. Wind whistled through the branches and bit through her cloak. It was all too easy to conjure images of phantom soldiers in blue, led by a man with wild blonde hair and furs that made him almost leonic. Of archers in black and scarlet surrounded by flame.

No. She would not let shades torment her when there was work to be done.

"Yeah, you're right." He bowed his head. "A grown man scared of ghosts. I'm going to be a lord and there's still so much I don't know. It's got to be easier, being born to ruling and warfare."

"No, mostly it makes us arrogant. Most nobles think they're entitled to rule because of a bit of magic blood." Meanwhile people like Byleth and Ashe himself were left ignorant and untrained, their potential squandered. "Far better to look for the temperament and will to rule and them train them. If I had gotten my way, you would have risen high in the new world. I don't suppose that's a comfort."

"Not really. I still don't understand taxes and duties."

It was a relief when they exited the woods and Edelgard saw flat open land below them. Better than that. Men and women in Dukedom colors were spread before them, racing north. Edelgard looked up and could just make out the dark shadow of a pegasus. She was about to find out whether these knights of Faerghus would obey her command. "Ashe, archers, loose! The rest of you, charge!"

A rain of arrow fell down as she and the knights surged forward. Shouts rang through the air, horses whinnied as their riders were shot out from under them. Edelgard raised her axe. The companies surged together, mixing like paint in the water, elegant formations surrendering to the chaos of battle. They were committed now, both sides, and it would be impossible for either to retreat in good order.

Not that she particularly wanted them to retreat. Cornelia had taken Edelgard's dream of conquest and order and transformed it to cruelty out of spite, and her servants would answer for the atrocities they had carried out. Sweat and dirt caked her face. Her arm burned as she heaved her axe, but she didn't stop. She would not stop until it was Cornelia and Thales' heads at her feet.

Now for the coup de grace. Fire flashed in her hand, bright enough to illuminate the sea of humanity swirling around her. Bright enough for waiting pegasus knights to join the fray. The knights of Galatea rained down, polished silver lances gleaming in the starlight. At their head was Ingrid as Edelgard had never seen her. She was utterly silent as she thrust Luìn again and again. The land glowed red with dark power, as if it were drinking in the blood spilled. Her gaze landed on Edelgard and the lance grew brighter as she gave a hapless sergeant a particularly savage thrust.

Bugles sounded to restore order but it was useless as the Dukedom men turned and fled. Edelgard and the Gaspard knights gave chase and turned their axes, swords, and lances on their retreating foes. Some screamed, half formed pleas for mercy dying on their lips as they were cut down. Their supplies lay strewn across the grass, splattered with blood. Not a chivalrous battle perhaps, but there was no such thing as a storybook war.

Edelgard called for a halt. Her breath came in ragged gasps as sweat poured down her face and neck. Traitor's Gap loomed a short distance away. She frowned. The ravine was narrow and the lose stone's scattering the ground begged for horses to throw their shoes in the darkness. "Better to go in on foot, if they even went this way."

"They did," Ingrid said from behind her. "Five of them at any—ah!"

Edelgard turned. Ingrid was paler than when the battle began, her teeth clenched. A slash cut across her left hand, not life-threatening but deep enough to draw blood. "You should get that looked at."

"It's not a grave injury. It can afford to wait until we're back at camp."

"Not if it gets infected," she said in the tone she had used to terrify recalctriant courtiers. "Her Majesty would have both our heads. At least let me bandage it." She retrieved a pack of bandage cloth from her saddlebag before Ingrid could protest.

Ingrid sighed but followed her a little distance away from their soldiers to give them some privacy. Edelgard's skin prickled. It was the first time she had been alone with a Kingdom soldier other than Ashe. She didn't think Ingrid would kill her—if she had wanted to avenge Dimitri's honor she would have done it already as befitting a true knight—but it still made her uneasy. "Thank you for your help," she said to quell the roiling in her stomach is much as anything. "Your skill with a lance is exceptional. To think your father could think of nothing higher for you than to be traded for gold."

"Don't." Ingrid hissed and Edelgard didn't know if it was in pain or anger. "Don't say that I was exactly the kind of person you were fighting for. My Crest made it harder for me to become a knight, but a knight is all I ever wanted to be. A knight of Faerghus, the land you ravaged and whose king you murdered. I should execute you where you stand."

Her good hand went to her sword, and Edelgard dropped into a fighting stance. Ingrid made a sound low in her throat. "But I won't because I gave my word to Byleth. If you ever make the slightest move against her, I will remember my oaths to Dimitri."

"I see." Edelgard forced her body to relax. "Now that you've gotten that off your chest, give me your hand." She studied her hand in the light of the stars and moon, judging the size of bandage she would need before she opened the pack, drew her dagger and began cutting strips.

Ingrid gasped, forcing Edelgard to look up. What color she possessed had drained from her face as she stared, shivering at the dagger. "You?" she whispered.

"Not you too. I didn't steal it from the body of some noble if that's what you're accusing me of. It was given to me long ago by someone I cared for."

"'Someone you cared for?'" Ingrid repeated incredulously. "You and your soldiers murdered Dimitri, and you don't even have the decency to use his name. We all teased him about giving a girl his favorite dagger, but I never imagined it would be you. Murdering someone who held you so dear? Your depravity knows no bounds."

Edelgard doubled over and his breath left her lungs. Her mind seemed to collapse in on itself as memories that her time beneath the palace clawed to the surface as sharply as if they had happened yesterday.

_She and Dimitri stood in the courtyard. His eyes were large and sad. Both of them were too old to cry, but tears formed at the corners of his eyes and she felt the same in hers. "Is it really true that you're going away, El?"_

_She nodded. Her uncle had come down to breakfast this morning and told her. She had always hated him for taking her away from her father, but his eyes had had a new hardness and, for the first time, she had been afraid of him. "It's all happening so fast. We're leaving right now. I'm supposed already be at the carriage."_

_"Then..." He unclasped the sheathed dagger at his belt and handed it to her. "I want you to take this. Promise me that you'll use it to cut your own path, El. That you won't lose heart."_

_Edelgard stared. A dagger, not flowers or a stuffed animal? Dimitri was a strange boy. But he had been her only friend in an even stranger country, kind and gentle even if it had taken him forever to learn how to dance. Hubert was nice, but Dimitri was the first person her own age who had treated her like a normal person._

_"Edelgard," her uncle called, "the carriage is waiting."_

_Edelgard took the dagger. She should say something, do something, but if she did she would cry and try to find King Lambert and beg him to let her stay. So she walked away, swearing she would never forget the boy with the long hair and large eyes._

Her mind threw her back to the present without warning. She had fallen to her hands and knees during the memory, and the ground was hard beneath her. Wind bit through her, even colder than before. There was an unfamiliar coldness near the corners of her eyes. Tears? She hadn't truly cried in years. That part of her had died along with her siblings. The wetness trickled down despite that. She had watched as her bodyguards had stabbed Dimitri and felt nothing but a twinge of emptiness. He hadn't been the stepbrother she had never known, just another tragic victim of Thales and Cornelia. He had been her dearest friend and first love. Now he was dead.

She forced herself to her feet. Ingrid stared at her in shock and horror. Away. She had to get away. She couldn't be seen like this. Couldn't afford to be weak. She staggered forward, but didn't fall. She had to get away from here. Back to the knights she commanded, back to when she was strong. Her legs carried her on as memories of her academy days flashed across her mind. Nodding coldly behind her mask, knowing it was easier if Claude and Dimitri died now. Wondering dryly what punishment the church prescribed for fratricide. Being stupidly relieved when Kostas failed. Barely suppressing a groan when Dimitri told her to be careful before a mission. The shock of seeing him almost feral in the battle for the monastery, and knowing that it was far too late to explain the truth of who he should hate.

The knights stared at her as she returned. Edelgard willed her spine to straighten. She could show no weakness to those so recently enemies. "A handful of stragglers are hiding in Traitor's Gap. I refuse to let them return to Cornelia. I ask for volunteers to help me track them." Depriving one of the authors of Duscar of minions would soothe her wounded mind.

The knights looked at each other. "Are you certain? You look sick," one said.

She made a dismissive gesture. "I am well enough to hunt vermin. Volunteers?"

Four stepped forward, though not the one who had questioned her health, It would do. "Follow me, then," she said with more authority than she felt. "The rest of you, await Her Majesty."

Traitor's Gap reminded Edelgard of Zanado. Even in daylight its grey stone and uneven ground were a hazard to the unwary. The ghosts of memory had followed her here as well. Bernadetta, Dimitri, Dorothea, soldiers in scarlet and black and blue and silver swirled around her. _You killed us. We died for you and now nothing is left._

"Silence!" she rasped. "It was war. You knew what you were getting into. I did the best that I could. "

"The best you could?" said a harsh voice that didn't sound at all like the phantoms that haunted her mind. "You have destroyed my country. You murdered my family. Turn and face me, monster!"

Edelgard did turn. One of the men of Gaspard stood before her, his fellows nowhere in sight. His sword gleamed in the light. So at last someone had come for revenge. She felt suddenly very tired. Tired of the blood, tired of memories that she didn't know how to bear, tired of feeling that she had no place in this world. "If you're going to murder me, have the sense to wait until after we liberate Faerghus."

"The blood you shed has been crying out for retribution for years! My wife, my children, my farm! You and the usurper are two of a kind."

Edelgard straightened. She had long ago resigned herself to being hated, but that accusation pierced through enough to wound. Let her be hated for something she had done for once and not for a massacre she had only committed in a delusional dream. "We should be battling Cornelia, not each other. I've never even been to Gaspard."

"Not there. Not there," he muttered. "Here. Count Rowe told us that it was the rebels who burned down Holywell, but I knew he was lying. I just couldn't do anything about it. I was too cowardly."

Holywell. Yes, she had sacked the village. One among many.

"But not anymore. Tonight, the last Emperor of Adrestia dies."

He charged her with a scream that didn't sound human. Just as Kostas had so many years ago. Edelgard's hand closed around the dagger almost of its own accord. She would die in this war, without a doubt, but not some meaningless death at the hands of someone who couldn't tell the difference between her and Cornelia. She waited until he was almost on her then twisted around to jam the dagger between his chest and shoulder. He screamed and roared and staggered back, blood pouring from the wound and on to Edelgard's hand.

Another roar. "I'll kill...kill..."

"No, you won't," Ingrid said from somewhere above her as wings beat. She held her sword in her good hand, the other crudely and hastily bandaged.

"Traitor!"

Boots thudded on the rocks as Byleth and the Imperial Guard appeared. Her eyes were bright even in the darkness as her gaze flew to the dagger and to Edelgard's bloody hand. "What happened? And don't rip the blade from his shoulder. You'll be as likely to kill him as not." Golden light swallowed her hand before drifting off toward the wound. The hole closed as if Edelgard had never struck him and both the knight and the dagger fell to the ground. "I repeat: what happened here?"

Edelgard stood rooted to the spot. The burst of energy had disappeared with the immediate threat, and her legs trembled with the effort of staying on her feet. Memories—Dimitri holding her tightly, the clang of steel on steel—overwhelmed her until she was no longer sure whether she was in the past or present. And she no longer had the energy to fight back.

Byleth took a step forward. "Edelgard?"

That voice had grounded her so many times, but now it wasn't enough. She had remembered too much, seeing too much carnage these last few weeks. Her teeth chattered but no words came out.

The knight stood. "She tried to kill me. She sent the others on ahead, then drew her dagger on me. Said she would finish what she began."

_Defend yourself!_ said some still-functioning part of her mind.

And then, a small quiet voice that sounded suspiciously like Dimitri. Not the Dimitri that had demanded her head but the boy whose shoulder she had cried into and confessed that she just wanted to go home to her father._ But what if he's right? What if you killed his family? What then?_

"You disgrace yourself," Ingrid said quietly. "You ambushed and tried to murder your commanding officer when you were supposed to be pursuing the enemy. I was worried that Edelgard had gone mad and might endanger her troops, so I followed her. I'm glad I did."

"I see." There was the slightest hint of something in Byleth's voice, the same tone she had used at Remire. "You tried to kill your commanding officer, my agent. You needlessly endangered your mission in the lives of your fellow knights. And for what?"

The knight drew himself to his full height. "There's no point in further deception, then. I did it because this woman is an enemy of Faerghus. She murdered my son, just a boy of six." His voice cracked for the first time. "I did my duty as a father."

"I'm sorry," Byleth said softly. "Truly. But her life isn't yours to take." Her voice and posture changed, no longer Byleth but the Emperor. "By your own confession, I find you guilty of attempted murder, insubordination, endangerment of troops, and assaulting an official. By the customs held throughout Fódlan since time immemorial, I exercise my duty as commanding officer and sentence you to death."

Two of the guardsmen seized him by the arms and dragged him forward as Byleth drew her own steel sword. "Have you anything to say before the sentence is carried out?"

The knight stilled and fixed his gaze on Byleth. "I only tried to do what you should have done. You are no servant of the Goddess because the Goddess rewards justice."

It was over quickly, one thrust and he crumpled to the ground. "Take him away and give him a decent burial. The rest of you, try to find the stragglers. I'll see that Edelgard and Ingrid get the attention they need."

The soldiers left one by one, two of the guardsmen carrying the body out. When the last one left, Edelgard's strength finally failed her and she collapsed against the wall of the ravine. Her breath came in harsh, shuddering pants.

Byleth took Edelgard in her arms. She was warm and solid. "How can I help?"

"Stay," Edelgard choked out, "until I can walk."

And so they clung to each other in the dark as the wind howled through the ravine, carrying echoes of the dead.


	10. Monsters, You and I

The sun peaked over the horizon, bathing the asters in soft light. More of Edelgard's memories of Faerghus were returning. She had been here before, on one of the rare occasions Arundel—the real Arundel—had allowed her to leave Fhirdiad to go riding with Dimitri and King Lambert. Lambert had towered above her, and Edelgard had been a little frightened no matter how much he smiled or praised her horsemanship. She did take the flowers he let her pick back to her room where they had stayed until Thales had plunged her into the abyss.

She wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself and made a contemptuous noise in the back of her throat. It seemed all she had done since crossing the border, since Enbarr, was break and force Byleth to save either her body or her mind. The day she had been freed from the dungeon, she had sworn that she would never be weak or caged again, but she had been nothing but weak, caged by her own mind and memory. Her only reason to live was to end Agartha and the hope that Byleth might fulfill some part of her dreams in her stead, but she was becoming a liability, freezing up like that. It was a miracle she hadn't died in the ravine.

She felt rather than heard Byleth approach. Her Majesty wore a plain black officer's uniform with no sign of rank. If one could ignore the uncanny hair and eyes, she could pass for just another soldier. Edelgard could ignore neither, nor the power swirling around her. Even her healing magic felt different, as if she were creating life and strength anew. Not a goddess, but with the same kind of power as the Children of the Goddess who had been happy to fabricate miracles. Except Byleth made no such claims about herself. _If all so-called gods were like you, Fódlan would have been very different._

Byleth stood beside her, staring at the sunrise. "We haven't had a chance to talk since...everything. How are you?"

She had barely slept for the last two days, staring at the magical light Lysithea used while memories of the war haunted her. The phantoms accused her of murder and betrayal for the deaths she had caused and for continuing to live too long. But her madness no longer signified. "Don't concern yourself for me, not while Cornelia still sits on her throne."

"It's too late. I'm concerned." She bowed her head slightly. "That dastard almost murdered you. I should have been faster. I should have done a better job screening the Gaspard knights. I should have protected you."

"It's my duty to protect you, not the other way around. Sometimes I think you hold my life too dearly. When the war turned against me, I thought I would force you to kill me, that it would be a more peaceful victory for you and that I couldn't bear watching Adrestia crumble. I think perhaps that I was partially right."

Byleth spun to her and seized her arm. "Edelgard!" she said with something almost like panic. "Don't speak that way. I forbid it."

"Please, Your Majesty. Byleth. Let me finish." She gently pried Byleth's hand away and Byleth let her. "You endanger the crown you wear by treating me as you do. As much as I don't believe in the Goddess, your people do, and yet you go out of your way to protect and heal the chief heretic. How long until they stop believing that the Goddess chose you and your authority dries up because you won't deliver the justice they demand?"

"Let them believe what they want. I will not have you lynched because someone went mad with the desire for vengeance and can't tell the difference between you and Cornelia. You have killed, I know that, but I can't condemn you without—" She froze and started again. "I promise I will guard your life better. You'll get your chance to heal."

No, Byleth had come so close to solving the mystery for her. She wouldn't let it go. "You can't condemn me without what? A confession? I confess that according to the church, I have spent over five-and-a- half years doing things worthy of death. Why does my continued existence matter so much? No, more than my existence. You treat me like royalty still. You soothe my mad spells. Even when you're cold to me, you seem to call me to some version of myself that hasn't existed for years. Why?"

Byleth closed her eyes and hunched her shoulders as if she were in pain. "I can't answer that question. Suffice it to say that I know the Goddess exists and that I'm not worthy to hold that power. All I can do is use it to heal. So if I can help you heal, then I will."

Edelgard gritted her teeth in frustration. "That's a platitude, not an answer."

"It's not a platitude." She met Edelgard's gaze with effort. "I mean it. You've been through a lot because of me. I'll give you anything you ask, short of the crown."

"Careful making promises like that, Your Majesty." She thought briefly, darkly, of asking for death, but Byleth's terrified expression silenced her. She wanted the Agarthans dead, for no more children to suffer the tyranny of a world that worshiped magic blood. She wanted a way to deal with memories and emotions that had been locked away for years. None of that was in Byleth's power to grant. But perhaps she could banish one nightmare. "I would like to go to Holywell, to the ruins of a farm there. I almost died for what I ordered there. I'd like to see how bad it was."

"You think that will help?"

Edelgard shrugged. "Perhaps. I'd rather see what happened there in the light of day. Maybe I can stop some of the more lurid accusations before you have to intervene." Better to see the scars of war in reality than continue to be haunted by things that never had been and crimes she had never committed.

"This isn't a good idea. This isn't remotely a good idea." Her voice softened. "If you feel guilty, there are better ways—"

"Guilt? I haven't felt guilt for years." She was starting to see why Byleth busied herself so much with the counseling box. The urge to tell other people what they were feeling was universal, it seemed. "You promised."

"So I did." She sighed. "If you promise to take someone with you and to be back by nightfall, then you may go."

"I can do it with a fast horse." As for the other stipulation, surely one of Byleth's former students would accompany her?

"I have a scouting mission."

"I'm on healer duty. "

"I ate some bad fish. Have you seen a bucket?"

An hour later, Edelgard stalked through camp. Fate was being its usual self to her. Even the slightest attempt to quiet the voices in her head was being stymied. Maybe she should just confess to every atrocity under the sun. It would save time. Never mind defending herself. She should clearly take after Dimitri and self-flagellate over things she had never done.

"Ugh. Why does being a lord have to involve so many numbers?"

Ashe sat on a log, balancing a heavy tome on his knees. Edelgard smiled despite herself. She had few clear memories of him from their Academy days, but what she did have were of an even smaller boy tackling even larger books. He was having some difficulty from the looks of it. She had always been good with numbers. Perhaps fate was smiling on her after all.

He looked up as she approached. "Edelgard! I'm so, so sorry. Are you okay?"

Once his concern would have seemed unbearably naïve or condescending, but care that was exactly what it seemed was a rare and precious commodity these days. "You have nothing to apologize for." She gestured towards the book. "Having trouble?"

"Oh yes. Gaspard accounts are a real mess, and our lands are in bad need of improvements. Even after reading every book I can find, I still feel like I'm stumbling in the dark."

Here was a chance to get what she wanted and to strike some small blow for merit over blood. "I can explain it to you, if you like. I just need you to do me a small favor in return."

"What kind of favor?"

"I want to go back to Holywell. I want to see the place that I was almost killed for." She braced herself for the same argument Byleth had given her.

But Ashe nodded slowly and solemnly. "Lonato told me that knights had to do terrible things sometimes and that we should make a point of looking at the aftermath. If we couldn't bear to look, maybe it wasn't necessary."

"Hmph." It was the quaintly chivalrous notion of a quaintly chivalrous man of from quaintly chivalrous nation. _And it's true. You doubt now, You wish to see if you are the monster they claimed._

They saddled their horses and rode along the same paths they had traveled with the knights a few days prior. There was an eerie stillness in the land by daylight, as if Cornelia had managed to work her dark magic without her minions. Had it been like this when Edelgard had put down the rebellion? She searched her memory and found nothing. It was not that trauma had made her forget, but simply that one farming hamlet was much like another and there was so much death in war.

Perhaps an hour later and with the village itself in sight, they came to what had once been a farm. The fields were half-wild with weeds, felled trees left where they lay in the orchard, pastures grown over and fences broken. There were such scenes all across the length and breadth of Fódlan because the fastest way to force a troublesome noble to surrender was to pauper him and prove him incapable of protecting his subjects. If you were fortunate, you could win without so much as open battle.

But still, it was a terrible thing.

They tied their horses to two of the few remaining trees, and Edelgard drifted toward the ruins of the farmhouse. The roof was half-gone and she imagined she could still smell the smoke. Her men had been thorough. Any surviving furniture had been carted away to use as kindling or raw materials. And yet, there were signs of the people who had lived here: a yellowed prayer book, the pages dog-eared, a silver-plated chain that would still have cost a minor knight a month's salary. Her breath caught. Entirely unremarkable people who had only been attacked because they had been born here and not Adrestia or Gloucester. Unfortunate. Yes, that was the word. Unfortunate.

_No it isn't._

She entered the smaller of two rooms on the second floor. The soldiers had either been pressed for time or sloppy because the bed that dominated the center of the room was mostly intact. It was a terribly small bed, too small for an adult. A child's bedroom? Her gaze landed on a toy horse lying forgotten in a corner. She picked it up as if it were made of glass and would shatter into her hand. A child's toy. A child had lived here and died here and his father had tried to kill her because of it.

Children died in war. It was tragic, but it was inevitable. She had accepted that implicitly when she declared war on the church. Her ends had justified the means.

A different toy horse from not so long ago flashed across her mind. "_Well, your friends have child-killing down, so that really doesn't help."_ It wasn't the same. She had been fighting for justice, not out of sadism. All the generations hence that she would save were more important.

_You haven't saved anyone._

Edelgard trembled. She had never imagined surviving failure, had never imagined looking at the wreckage except through the lens of her hard-won meritocracy. Certainly, there would be no one to hold her to account. No reason to doubt her own righteousness.

Except she had no new world to offer her victims as recompense. This child, Dimitri, Bernadetta, they had died for nothing. She had regretted all the good she would never do, but she had shied away from one unmistakable truth. Failure meant that the scales could not be balanced. She was not a revolutionary. She was a tyrant. A murderer.

Edelgard fell to her knees as vomit rose in her throat. Murderer. Murderer. She clawed at the wood as tremors became spasms. Murderer. Monster. Her breath came in broken gasps. Murderer. Monster. Demon. A small, pitiful sound escaped her throat. As if the Flame Emperor deserve to be pitied. Her lungs burned in her chest as if they knew they should have stopped working long ago.

"Edelgard? Edelgard!" Gentle hands pulled back her hair. Edelgard flinched away. She had lost the right to gentleness, to anything but the axe or the noose. The hands held her all the same. "Edelgard, you're scaring me."

"Ashe?" she whispered. She had forgotten about him but here he was, watching her break. "You should leave. Come back with guards."

"Guards?"

"For me. I killed the people here."

"I thought the Imperial Army came through?" His hands moved to her shoulders and he tried to pull her to her feet. "Come on. We should be heading back. Byleth will be worried about you. I'm worried about you."

Edelgard laughed, and her breath stank of nausea. "Aren't you listening to me? I ordered their deaths and enslaved your country for no good reason. You should be spitting on me."

"No. No one deserves to be spat on." He pulled her to her feet with surprising strength for someone so lithe. "I know what you did, but I've known it for a long time now. It's not my place to condemn you."

"Aren't you listening to me? I'm responsible for Cornelia."

"And I served a man who served her." His voice was barely audible. "Before that, I was a thief. I would still be a thief and probably worse than that if fate hadn't sent Lonato my way."

"Don't compare us." Edelgard shivered again. He was as pure as driven snow for all his self-doubt, but Ashe did have a point. She should return to Byleth. As protective as she had been of Edelgard, she had been disgusted by her plans to take the harvest. She had wanted Edelgard feel guilt. Well, she did. Byleth was supposed to wield the power of the Goddess. Let her earn her accolades for once and sit in judgment.

Somehow, she stayed on her horse as they made their way back to the camp. Byleth was waiting for them, the barest hint of relief on her face. "You're back." Her gaze landed on Edelgard, and her color drained. "What happened?"

"She saw a burned down farmhouse. I think it broke her. "

Byleth strode toward them and drew Edelgard unresisting from her horse. "You're shivering." She unfastened her cloak and threw it over Edelgard, pulling her close so that Edelgard could lean on her. Soldiers stared at them as they passed, but Byleth seemed entirely indifferent and Edelgard's mind raced without going anywhere, horror and shame drowning out all else. Byleth led her to the Imperial tent and sat her in a chair. "I'll make tea."

Tea? After all this? "No. You don't understand. I saw what I did to those people. My war was supposed to create a better world, but it didn't. I'm just another warlord. A murderer." Her breath hitched. "I accept whatever punishment you deem fitting."

She had enough pride left to keep her gaze on Byleth. Byleth took a deep breath, but her inscrutable expression never wavered. No hatred. No disgust. No anything. "I suppose you could clean out the stables. No one likes doing that."

Edelgard gaped. "I am admitting that I'm the monster Rhea paints me as and you wish to treat me as if I spoke out of turn in class. Fódlan ran red with blood because of me."

Byleth tilted her head to one side. "Yes? That's why we had to fight a war to stop you. I couldn't very well let you take over the Alliance, and I shudder to think what you would have done to the faithful if you been allowed to. But you have been stopped, I find it extremely doubtful that anyone will take up your mantle anytime soon, so I see no need for further action on the matter."

Her even, slightly confused tone undid Edelgard almost more than condemnation would. "But I admit it. There's no longer any excuse to coddle me. You know what I am."

"I always did. You were the woman who started a war for a good reason, who assisted with desecrating the dead, and who provided aid and comfort to the people who murdered my father and who tortured the woman who is the nearest thing I ever had to a mother. That is what you are just now realizing?"

Edelgard nodded weakly.

Byleth smiled her sad, weary smile and took a half step forward. "Edelgard, if I thought you deserved to die for any of that, I would have split your skull open in Enbarr and Rhea and Seteth would have thanked me for it. But I never wanted you dead. I don't even want you to feel pain."

Fire burned in her chest, and Edelgard wished the tears had not been cut out of her so long ago. She had never liked debt and crimes could not go unpunished, especially not crimes so grave and public. "Why? Why do you refuse to condemn me?" Byleth said nothing, and Edelgard reached for her hand. "Why do you treat me as someone to save and protect if you know what I am?"

They stared at each other, the only sound Edelgard's harsh breathing. Byleth closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, the power was gone. She was no longer the hope of a religion, but a mercenary scarcely older than Edelgard. "Because if someone like you who had the best intentions can't be saved…" Even her voice sounded younger and weaker. "...then what hope is there for me?"

Edelgard could only watch as Byleth buried her face in her hands. "You know that I was a renowned mercenary. You may even know that I was called it the Ashen Demon. But do you know why?" And slowly, in a monotone, she told the story of her company being set upon by a group of rebels. Of tracking them down and of burning down their village and hearing the civilians scream. "I told myself that I was simply doing the most efficient thing to counter a threat, but looking back I think I was feeling my first emotion: the desire for revenge. I would have stayed that way if I hadn't stumbled on you in Remire. If I'm a good person now, it's only by miracle. And because of you."

"Byleth." She could think of nothing else to say. She reached for Byleth's hand and found it this time, cold, clammy and shaking as they both were. Byleth shivered, but she didn't pull away. This was the woman she had fantasized about for a year and the woman who had defeated her. She had always seemed so unflappable, so powerful that Edelgard couldn't even dent her. But she was only a woman, with scars and guilt and regrets the same as anyone. Someone who could be hurt and who needed protecting as much as Edelgard did.

"So that's why. I've never seen someone as remarkable as you, and I don't mean your Crests. Your charisma, your strength, your courage. We are monsters, you and I, and the blood will never come off our hands. Maybe we deserve to die, but I somehow got the powers of a progenitor god instead. So I think we should use our unnatural luck to make the world better." She swallowed. "Or I suppose you could tell the world what I've done and knock the crown from my head. They wouldn't follow me if they knew what I was."

Edelgard shook her head and looked down at their intertwined hands. She had always felt a pull toward Byleth that even infatuation couldn't explain and in her more cynical moments, she had chalked it up to another way that Crests had taken a choice from her. But it was not magical blood or destiny that bound them together. It was like recognizing like. The emperor who wanted to change the world and had become a monster and the monster who became emperor and wanted to change the world. "I'll follow you. And I will try to make use of the life you spared to help you build that better world."

She wasn't sure which of the moved first, but the next thing Edelgard knew, she and Byleth were holding each other. She buried herself in the warmth of Byleth's neck and raked her nails over the planes of her shoulders. She and Byleth were broken, scarred mortals. But there was more comfort and strength in her than in all the plaster saints the world demanded. And this? It wasn't her childish fantasy, with love notes and white garlands. But this, _this_ was what she had wanted even when she had had no name for it. To be held like this and feel safe, for someone to see all the ugly parts of her, even the parts she wouldn't acknowledge, and not turn away. To have one person who was her equal. And now, broken and diminished as she was, she had found her.

And she had no idea what to do next.

But Byleth pulled back, smiling again. "Thank you. Just...thank you, Edelgard."

"Whatever for?"

Byleth tucked an errant strand of hair behind Edelgard's hair by way of answer. "You've had a long day. Tomorrow, perhaps you and I can figure out our first steps together?"

She looked almost shy and Edelgard could do nothing but nod, bewildered. She exited the tent and blinked against the sudden light. Redemption was an even quainter notion than chivalry. Byleth was right. There was no washing the blood from their hands. Some day the bill would come due for all the lives Edelgard had taken. She knew with more certainty than ever that the battle against Agartha would mean her death. But until she was called upon to give her life, she would do what she could to improve the world. Not as a crusader, but by using her gifts in service of those she had meant to raise up.

Ashe sat on the same log, still studying the same book. She had promised to explain estate accounting to him, hadn't she? It wasn't fair restitution for all she had done, but there was no fair restitution. She cleared her throat.

He jumped up as if she were a ghost. "Edelgard. Are you...better?"

"As close as anyone gets." She sat beside him and looked over at his shoulder at the rows of numbers. "I believe I promised you a lesson."


	11. Hegemon

"My scouts ran into another one of Cornelia's squads." Shamir's face and voice were carefully neutral. "No casualties but they managed to poison the well and the surrounding forest was largely destroyed. Magical fire. It had to be."

Byleth nodded even as a frisson of anxiety passed through her. Jeralt had always handled logistics for the Blade Breakers but even she knew how critical potable water and timber were for sieges. Her gaze turned to Edelgard. She looked like death. A decent woman would have sent her back to Garreg Mach to heal in peace but necessity was the mother of cruelty. "How long will our supplies hold?"

Edelgard leafed through a stack of parchment. "Assuming Claude's soldiers are similarly supplied? A month. More with strict rationing."

It would take three days to march their forces to Fhirdiad. Even in the best case, they would have only a month to break the capital. A simple siege might have been enough if Cornelia were an ordinary ruler, but she would have little compunction in starving the civilians to make sure her army ate. "Then our first priority is finding another well or other source of water and our second is building siege weapons. We must break the walls of Fhirdiad." Thank Sothis that Claude was arriving today with the rest of the army. "Our entire reconnaissance corps is under your command to find water and timber."

"On it." Shamir nodded and turned away. "If you had hurried to the capital we wouldn't be in this mess. Catherine, why did I let you talk me into following these kids?"

Byleth exhaled. Shamir was right. She knew she was right. It would have been faster to cut off the serpent's head and go straight for Fhirdiad. It would have left her flanks exposed, but it would have been faster. And in the end, they had faced no ambushes, only this endless tide of scorched-earth tactics. She cast her eyes to heaven. "Please, tell me I made the right decision."

A warm, gloved hand found hers, as Edelgard threaded their fingers together. Byleth relaxed slightly. The air around them had shifted since Edelgard had returned from Holywell. It wasn't so much that Edelgard had felt remorse as that the sight of her so broken had broken Byleth in turn, Broken her enough to divulge the past she had only ever shared with Claude and then only because she had blurted it out. She had given Edelgard the power to unmask her as a fraud, but Edelgard hadn't. Byleth had been forced again and again to trust her, but the woman who had once ambushed her in the Holy Tomb had been nothing but supportive. Byleth didn't know what to do with that loyalty, but for the moment she could bask in the newfound warmth.

They stayed like that a long while until Byleth pulled her hand back. "Looks like we've had our last baths for a while."

Edelgard laughed a little. "I've endured worse. Claude will be here soon. If anyone can conjure supplies from the air, it's the Master Tactician."

"Maybe he can conjure a way into Fhirdiad while he's at it." Byleth frowned. She had no choice but to believe in miracles, but she wished she could perform them a will like the goddess they thought she was instead of a few parlor tricks with time that could never undo her mistakes when they really mattered. Only once had she felt like the Chosen of the Goddess or Enlightened One or whatever she was supposed to be.

Sothis' voice played across her mind. _"I hear the wish of your heart as if it were my own. You wish to return and save the little ones. And now I give you the power to grant the wish of your heart. Use it well_. She had cut through the boundaries of space and time as if they were nothing and healed from a fall that should have been fatal. Her wish to remain beside her beloved students had been granted, but it no longer felt like enough. She wanted a way to spare them from this war, to ensure that none of them would be lost. She wanted to kill what remained of the Demon within.

And she wanted Edelgard. The thought was like the shock she got from touching metal. Byleth wanted to hold Edelgard again when her world wasn't falling apart. To walk with her on the monastery grounds and feel her head on her shoulder. She had had those chaste, almost childish romantic fantasies when she had been a professor, but she had buried them in the Holy Tomb when the Flame Emperor's mask came off. But if she could trust Edelgard, then those fantasies need not remain dead.

Edelgard looked at her questioningly. "Byleth, are you all right?"

_I must be losing my mind. I don't need this right now._ "I'm fine," she squeaked out. They were embarking on what was sure to be a brutal siege and she was woolgathering over an old infatuation. She trusted Edelgard. Good. Byleth had wanted to restore her to the better part of her nature. That didn't mean that Edelgard was interested in romance or that such a thing would be a good idea. And they were in the middle of a bloody war. "I want you there for the strategy meeting. There's probably no one alive who's spent more time contemplating the conquest of Fhirdiad."

"You're probably right," Edelgard murmured. She inhaled and squared her shoulders, and when she spoke again her voice had a harder edge. The Emperor's voice. "It will be grim, whatever our strategy. Fhirdiad has been starved into submission before, but the walls have never been breached. There was a reason I thought Cornelia's coup was the simpler path. But I'll give you any insight that I can."

It was late afternoon when the first green and gold banners appeared over the horizon. Byleth and Edelgard stood at the edge of camp ready to welcome Claude. Byleth's heart was no more settled. She was sharply aware of Edelgard standing next to her and how she only needed to turn a bit to touch her. It was better than thinking about water or the war. Maybe that was it. She needed a distraction, so her mind had returned to the thing that had distracted her most five years ago.

Claude's smile was as bright as ever, even if it didn't reach his eyes. His grip, too, was firm as he shook her hand. "Long time no see, Teach." His gaze took in Edelgard. "And your adjutant is looking lovely as ever. Hello, Edelgard. I hope you haven't turned into an icicle." He took Edelgard's hand and kissed it, and Byleth fell a stab of something that she preferred not to think about.

Edelgard rolled her eyes. "I see you managed to keep the Alliance armies intact."

They looked back at the mass of humanity. It was true. The army before her seemed roughly the size of the one that had left Garreg Mach. "Not without some complications courtesy of Cornelia, but the Golden Deer are reporting for duty. We can discuss the rest somewhere warmer."

Byleth led them back to her tent and did her best to ignore the odd looks Claude gave her. She unrolled a map of Fhirdiad and the three of them crowded around the table. "I don't suppose you brought water or timber?"

Claude shook his head. "I was going to ask you the same question. Cornelia's troops are doing everything they can to deny us supplies and destroying Faerghus in the process." He gave a brief account of his campaign and the destruction and dark magic that was virtually identical to what Byleth had seen. She told him of the battles that had happened in his absence, doing her best to omit anything Edelgard might find too personal to be shared.

"So rationing and breaking through the walls are our only hope," Byleth said. "You both have more experience with siegecraft than I do. Any advice?"

"Fhirdiad is too large for us to encircle it." Edelgard traced the lines of the city walls on the map before landing on the northwest corner. "The strongest defense will be here at the Gray Tower. Whoever controls it can control the city with only a handful of men. You'll have to destroy the curtain wall before you can assault the main walls." She pointed to a stretch of wall to the south. "This is another possible entry point. It has the advantage of only being surrounded by a drive moat as well as mountainous terrain where we can take cover, but that terrain can just as easily be used against us, and Cornelia will have more troops stationed there because it does seem easier at first glance to take that position."

"Is there any possibility of sneaking someone inside the city, maybe opening the gates for us? Lysithea and Edelgard's teleportation magic has to be good for something."

Edelgard raised an eyebrow. "Yes, we can grab one other person each and magic ourselves inside the city and promptly get ourselves hacked to pieces trying to storm the gatehouse."

"Not a big fan of teleportation sickness, hm?" Claude asked. "As long as you're being so cheery, what sort of Agarthan technology or magic can we expect?"

"On the walls? Little you haven't already seen. Perhaps fire impervious to water. But Cornelia's resistance will not collapse when we make an opening. She commands golems impervious to all but the most powerful magic, and will doubtless use them to block our path to the palace. Within the palace...well, she is a mage of considerable skill, but what you'll need to watch out for are strange devices that can shoot lightning wherever she pleases. I don't know how it works, but Thales was irate when I asked them to install such devices in the palace at Enbarr."

"Well, I'll be thankful that you couldn't hit us with lightning on top of everything else," Claude said with another false smile. "As far as entering the city, we'll divide our forces again and hit both points at once."

Byleth's heart sank. She had become so accustomed to Claude coming up with a brilliant scheme, that she had almost believed that he could make things less bloody. A two-pronged assault would divide Cornelia's forces, but it would divide theirs as well. Two armies that would be feeling the effects of thirst holding two sets of siege weapons. "That's it?"

"Cornelia will think so." The smile reached his eyes. "The Almyrans had been looking for a way to destroy Fódlan's Locket for years and w—they may have found one. It's possible to build a siege tower that can be broken into multiple pieces and moved. If we build one along the south wall and mass our forces there, Cornelia will assume that's our point of attack. But if we moved the siege weapons and half the army under the cover of darkness, we can surprise her and give ourselves a chance."

"It could work. Those on the mountain will sustain heavy casualties." Edelgard bowed her head and closed her eyes. "I volunteer."

"No!" Byleth said loudly enough to make Claude and Edelgard look up. A twinge of embarrassment settled over Byleth, and she took a breath to steady herself. Her feelings for Edelgard were confusing and foolish, but in all these months one thing had never wavered. She wanted Edelgard to live. "I mean, you are my adjutant. You don't need to throw your life away."

"But you're asking your soldiers to throw theirs away. My life is not more valuable. I am your sword to..." A shadow passed across her face as some memory overtook her. "...to cut a bloody path."

"And her combat skills will help us most where the fighting is thickest. That's what the bearers of the Crest of Flames are according to legend, right?" Claude asked. "The ones who take on the worst fights and then win anyway? I'm all for her using those legendary powers to destroy Cornelia in a fit of irony."

They were right. Byleth hated it. "One of these days, I'll be ordering you to go to a party instead of to slaughter."

Claude smiled."A party isn't a terrible idea."

Edelgard raised an eyebrow. "We're rationing water and don't have any wine or ale, and you want to throw a party?"

"The core of a good party is music and people unwinding. You don't need alcohol for that. It'll be good for morale. Especially your morale. You look like you've had to take on the Agarthans all by yourselves. "

Byleth throw up her hands. "Fine. I'll have a party announced alongside the rationing scheme. In the meantime, Edelgard, if you could double check the quartermasters' reports?" If only she could limit those she cared about to mundane paperwork.

She and Claude left and found themselves by some silent consensus, walking past the edge of camp to the vast expanse beyond. They stood at the very edge of Tailtean, forests still visible behind them and Fhirdiad still by the horizon. Claude was drinking in the sight, but he had always been passionate about history. All Byleth could see was how easily the open plain could become another Gronder.

"So," Claude said after a long time, "what really happened between you and Edelgard while I was gone?"

"Pardon?"

"When we left the monastery, you were half-convinced she would turn on you if you let her out of your sight. Now you two are comfortable with each other. The way she leans in when she talks to you, how close you walk together. It's almost as if…" His eyes went comically wide and he put his hand over his heart in mock distress. "You finally kissed the princess, didn't you? Teach, you sly dog!"

Byleth's face and ears burned. "I, no, it's not like that."

"I was teasing." His eyes softened, and he put a hand on her shoulder. "But you with to be like that, don't you? More than you did already?"

Claude's true skill had always been in reading people, and most of the time Byleth was glad to have someone who could explain and smooth out social interaction, but just now she wished that she was still opaque to him. "I trust her, yes. She was stabbed for me. Anything else is not my story to tell." She sighed. "As for the other thing, well, it really doesn't matter. There's a war on and you want me to be Queen of Fódlan. I might as well wish for the moon."

Claude didn't answer out loud but unstrapped Failnaught from his back and handed it to her. The Crest Stone didn't glow, but the Crest of Riegan's half-moon was plain to see. "I'd like you to be happy. You deserve to be, whatever you think of your past. If happy means Edelgard, well I'm the last person who should criticize a politicallyunwise romance." He exhaled and when he spoke again, he seemed suddenly older and more tired, his easy charm gone. "Do you ever wonder why I don't want to rule Fódlan?"

"You would be better at it." Byleth leaned in. Even after all these years, some of what she knew about Claude was pieced together from asides and observations that didn't quite fit. "Because you don't think people will accept a half-Almyran? It seems silly. If I were a peasant, I'd much rather be ruled by Duke Riegan than a mercenary who doesn't know what she's doing."

"I'm not just Almyran. I'm the only son of the King of Almyra. That doesn't mean quite the same thing that it does here, but I have to be considered a likely candidate to succeed my father. He and my mother were absolutely smitten with each other, and it didn't matter what kind of diplomatic incidents it caused or that they were supposed to be enemies. So, here I am, the product of love over logic. The child of two worlds who seems to be the only one who can see how much better the future would be for his people if they had a king who could show them a life beyond raiding." He chuckled. "I've never told anyone about this before. You truly do have a rare gift."

Byleth stared. Claude was a prince. It shouldn't shock her as much as it did. Being the son of an enemy king wasn't much different from being the son of an enemy soldier. But it was another puzzle piece. "You're going to be king?"

"Please don't be weird about this. I'm the same Claude. Honest." He shifted, embarrassed. "But my point is that, if you trust Edelgard even knowing what you know, don't let fear hold you back."

"You don't mind?"

"It's another thread that can bind her to us." His face changed and suddenly the man who had a joke for every occasion was looking at her with such softness that a lump settled over Byleth's still heart. "I meant what I said that you deserve to be happy. And if she hurts you, I'll poison her."

"Thank you." She was still terribly afraid, and it was still a foolish idea for many reasons, but it was nice to be supported. "I'll need your help setting up this party."

Two days later, music rang through the camp. It wasn't good music, if looks on Ferdinand and Lorenz's faces were any guide, but men and women from Leicester, Faerghus, and Adrestia laughed and clapped along. Byleth sat among them in her mercenary leathers and with her hood up to both to keep out the cold out and hide the hair that marked her as touched by Sothis. The Blade Breakers had loved their carousing, but Byleth had never felt the need to join in. She still didn't understand why what she was fairly certain were dirty jokes were funny, but it was nice to just sit here and be one of the men.

Claude slid into the space beside her. "All these people from every corner of Fódlan not just working together but being friendly." He smiled as a Bergliez man at arms slapped a Daphnel archer on the back. "Even the people who just fought a war! I've dreamed of a day like this for years, and even I almost don't believe it. It's all thanks to you, my friend."

Byleth demurred. "I'm just a figurehead. It's the people who have to do the hard work of forgiving in getting to know each other."

"There you go again with your modesty. We've got to get you thinking like an emperor. What are you going to do when the war's over? What's your dream for Fódlan?"

"The first thing I'm going to do is sleep for a week." She bowed her head. When the war was over, she would be Emperor or Queen or whatever title it was over a united Fódlan. Wanting anything at all beyond the necessities of life was still a novelty, but a ruler should have a vision. "I want what you do: the walls torn down and for people like Cyril and Dedue to not be accused of kidnapping because of where they come from." But it was more than that. She had seen Count Galatea's letters to Ingrid reminding her that her duty was to marry so she could save the family and heard how Ashe was saved from poverty by sheer dumb luck. "I want a world where people can thrive no matter who their parents are or whether they have a Crest or not. An Officer's Academy that's open to everyone regardless of whether they can pay. Maybe one that teaches things besides military arts. I want the people who are in charge to actually care about the people and know what they're doing as hypocritical as that is."

She glanced to where Leonie was explaining something to Seteth and Flayn, miming reeling in a fishing rod as she did.. "I want to keep all of you safe, and make sure another war like this never happens again."

"I think we all want that," said Edelgard softly.

Byleth turned. Edelgard stood a little away, hugging herself against the cold. She looked sad and tired as she watched the revelry. Byleth squeezed closer to Claude and patted the newly open space. "Join us."

Edelgard's eyes widened. "I didn't mean for you to hear that. Enjoy your revelry, Your Majest.y Duke Riegan."

"But we did hear it," Claude said with a grin. "And you worked as hard as anyone, if those dark circles under your eyes are any indication."

She looked down. "I don't have think that's a good idea."

Byleth winced. Edelgard deserved better than pain and isolation. "Then may I join you?"

She disentangled herself from Claude and walked to Edelgard, who looked at her oddly. Still, she let Byleth lead her to another log, beyond the main crush of people, as Claude walked behind. Soldiers stared as they passed, and some of the Kingdom men looked as if they wanted to sink a dagger into Edelgard's chest. Byleth didn't look at them. Let the world stare. She sat down at one end, but Claude took the other with a smile, forcing Edelgard to sit between them and press her softness into Byleth's side.

Byleth was going to strangle him once the war was over.

"This is nice," he said as if ge didn't notice how much Byleth was blushing. "I feel like we should stick some Duscur Bear on a skewer, roast it over a fire, and maybe tell ghost stories."

"I always preferred talking about the living over the dead. Ghosts plague us enough as it is. I couldn't help but overhear your conversation. Your plans for the future sound worthy, and a little more detailed than the last we spoke of such matters."

Byleth's flush deepened. To be praised by someone who knew what she was doing and gave praise so sparingly warmed her heart. "Thank you. Something good should come from all this bloodshed." She fumbled for her next words. "If you don't mind my asking, what would you have done if you won? Besides dismantle the church in the nobility, I mean?"

Edelgard started, and for a moment Byleth thought she wasn't going to answer. "That itself would have been the work of almost a lifetime. But I would have destroyed Agartha root and branch as soon as I was able. Broken up the old estates and created a civil service dependent on examination. I would have freed Brigid of its vassal status. If any time remained to me and I hadn't found a worthy successor, I would have turned my gaze abroad. Other nations aren't so beholden to backward ideals. We should at least try to be friends with them."

Byleth looked at Claude, who was staring slack-jawed at Edelgard. Then he smiled. "Our ideals really aren't so different after all.."

"No, I suppose they aren't. Perhaps we would have made fine allies if...well if wishes were pegasuses.,

"We should have gotten married. Though on second thought, could you imagine how devious our kids would be? They'd be learning how to poison people before they could walk." Edelgard glared at him and he threw up his hands in mock contrition. "All right, all right. No political union for us. But imagine marrying Teach. The former and current emperor united in affairs of state as well as affairs of the heart. Every romantic from here to Enbarr would love it."

If Byleth could have disappeared into the ground, she would have. Strangling was far, far too good for Claude. Edelgard went stiff beside her, her face a brilliant scarlet. Byleth's mind turned traitor and imagined a world where her feelings were returned, they survived the war, and she could stand beside Edelgard openly and without fear. Her fantasies conjured romantic outings pulled from novels in the library. Silly things like standing by the pond and watching the sunset as Edelgard rested her head on her shoulder. She imagined her lips, soft and slightly cold, pressing against Byleth's own. Byleth had never kissed anyone before, had never wanted to. But she would be willing to learn how. They could be...partners. Not the ruler and her formal consort but still united, making policy before retiring to a private world.

She was too old for such foolishness. _But I've never been foolish before. _

The sight of Shamir making her way towards the was enough to spare Byleth further embarrassment. "Byleth, Claude, Edelgard. My scouts and I found a forest with the timber you need, but there's a problem. Demonic Beasts, two of them that I saw. They looked like they had been there a while. Maybe feral or escapees. Hardly the biggest I've ever seen, but they need to be cleared out before you start cutting down trees."

Byleth nodded. It probably said something about her that monster hunting seemed almost quaint these days. "We'll get right on it. How do you two feel about some adventure in the morning?"

As it turned out, they weren't the only ones up for said adventure. The next morning Lysithea, Flayn, and Seteth stood beside them in the cold. Seteth walked between Edelgard and Flayn and kept glancing back as if he expected the Flame Emperor to steal his daughter back to the underground chamber. For her part, Edelgard did her best not to look at them at all. Byleth couldn't fault them for distrust—as remorseful as Edelgard had been, she had abetted the kidnapping that gave Flayn nightmares to this day—but she wished she could break down the walls all the same.

A soft _snap_ made her go still. The others heard it too and dropped into defensive stances and readied bows and magic. It was the only warning they received before the first Demonic Beast charged into the clearing. Its gray armorlike skin and slavering jaws reminded Byleth of the one that had tried to trap her in Zanado so long ago. An identical one was on its heels. Byleth drew steel. "Edelgard, Seteth, with me! Flayn, Lysithea, get those barriers down! Claude, suppressing fire!"

The three of them charged into the fray. The first beast roared and opened its maw to spew forth a purple filth that sailed harmlessly over Byleth's head before burning the bark from a pine. She circled around to the left as the beast eyed her hungrily. Its body shimmered with magical power and a slightly cracked Crest Stone glowed in its forehead. Byleth summoned the power of the Crest of Flames and nodded to Seteth and Edelgard at the Beasts rear. They seemed to glow with the power of their own Crests as they brought their weapons to bear. Byleth dashed forward and slashed at the Beast's face. The barrier flickered. Edelgard leapt into the air and plunged her silver axe toward the thing's back. The barrier flickered once more and Edelgard pushed past it, drawing black blood before the magic sent her reeling backwards. Seteth used the distraction to strike once, twice, with the ancient spear they had recovered from the shrine to Saint Chichol. It glowed white with holy power and Byleth had barely enough time to wonder why it seemed so different from the cursed Relics before the Beast roared a final time and fell.

Edelgard nodded once. "Thank you."

Seteth made a noncommittal noise. "That was both daring and foolhardy of you. I hope the abomination finds peace now."

"Not to interrupt the touching moment," Claude called over the din, "but the rest of us are trying to deal with its angry brother."

The second Beast was covered in black blood, half-dead but all the more enraged for that. It snapped at Lysithea waving its head wildly and ruining any chance Claude had to line up a shot. Time, they just needed time. Byleth let out a cry of her own and leapt to stab the beast in the neck. The magical barrier blunted what should have been a fatal blow into a gash, but it was enough as the Beast rounded on her and turned its back on the three ranged fighters. Magical energy that shone like moonlight engulfed Lysithea's hands before shooting outward. For a moment, the creature was covered in silver and then there was nothing at all.

They took a few moments to catch their breath. None of them had been injured, Byleth noted with relief, though Lysithea seemed a bit winded. Black goo oozed where the Beasts had been. Their husks withered away until only corpses and Crest Stones remained. The victims were young, about Lysithea's age if Byleth had to guess, slightly thinner than healthy and otherwise utterly unremarkable. Flayn knelt over one. "Rest well, now. Oh, I should never grow accustomed to such horror. Brother, might we at least bury these poor souls?"

Seteth opened his mouth to answer, but Edelgard spoke first. "We don't have time. Anything could be lurking in the forest."

Flayn's eyes darkened, and she seemed suddenly far older than her years. "You wanted to defile the bones of my ancestors, and you stole Crest Stones to create these monsters. You are the last person I should listen to regarding respect for the dead."

Edelgard hunched her shoulders, but said nothing. "Grab some stones and build a cairn," Byleth said. "Edelgard and I will keep watch."

The rest of them and Seteth's magic magic made short work of the burial rites, and Byleth contented herself with watching Edelgard, who never spoke and whose face was devoid of emotion, even as her shoulders remained hunched. Byleth patted her shoulder. Edelgard didn't look at her. "She's right," she said in the same flat voice. "I never saw much point in honoring the dead.I have no power to retrieve the Crest Stones I took or to restore the condemned I ordered implanted with them."

"No, I suppose you don't. She was suddenly very conscious of the weight of the Sword of the Creator at her side. For a moment, she thought of forgetting her promise to Rhea and telling Edelgard that all of Fódlan was built on the bones of the dead, and all she could do was make the sacrifice matter. "All the more reason for us to do a good job standing guard now, eh?"

The sound of wings filled the air and a horrible shriek made Byleth's blood run cold. A...thing rose over the line of the trees. It was larger than any Beast she had seen before, its great skeletal wings almost blotting out the sun. Its flesh was corpse pale, with dark patches on the face as if it were rotting away. Red eyes glowed as it flailed vaguely human limbs. The color drained from Edelgard's face. "No, oh no." She pushed Byleth to the ground. "Get down!"

Byleth lay pressed in the dirt as purple energy arced overhead. She heard the crack of tree limbs and the breaking of stone. "What is that thing?" she whispered.

"Something that will take all of us with your Relics to defeat." Edelgard said. "We need to lead it back to the others."

She could do that. Byleth drew the Sword of the Creator as she rose. It glowed with power. Bone stretched and swirled as she whipped it toward one of the Beast's forelegs. It shrieked again but didn't slow as it dove toward her. Byleth rolled out of the way and used the time it to the Beast to turn to make off through the undergrowth. Edelgard panted behind her. Branches and thorns tore at their cloaks, but she didn't dare move to more open ground while they were alone.

They stumbled into the clearing. "Your Relics! Now!" Byleth shouted to the others as they stared.

Mercifully, they didn't ask questions because they had only enough time to ready their weapons before the Beast appeared. One look at Seteth and Flayn told her that they didn't know what the thing was either.

Claude struck first, with a shot aimed at the eye. Magical power engulfed the arrow. Byleth had seen Failnaught kill a man from half a battlefield away, but the creature wreathed itself in purple flame, and the arrow fell harmlessly away. But the purple flame didn't vanish. Instead it moved along the Beast's limbs. The forelegs pulsed and eddied as if they were made of liquid. Another shriek. It almost sounded like fear.

"It's not stable," Edelgard said. "We have only to force it to expend energy, and it will destroy itself. Cornelia, you fool."

Claude readied another arrow. "Just so you know, I expect some answers in exchange for being bait."

"Not now, Claude!"

Lysithea sent forth another blast of silver light, this time aided by Thyrsus. The purple flame swallowed the magic, but the creature's face blurred into an indistinct mass before righting themselves. Again and again it absorbed attacks that had felled the strongest foes and each time the body seemed to lose more of its form. Just what was this strange Beast and how did Edelgard know so much?

The Beast was little more than an indistinct blob when it shot its last volley of purple light toward Seteth, He dodged but not quite quickly enough and the magic grazed against his leg. He grunted in pain and fell to one knee. The Beast or what was left of it sensed blood and lumbered toward him.

Edelgard stepped in front of it, silver but mundane axe at the ready. "The power you hold it wasn't meant for you. I'm sorry." She threw the axe. The creature engulfed it without even the need for a barrier. A useless blow.

Almost. Byleth circled around behind while it was busy with its prey and let fly the Sword of the Creator. The purple flame arced and died as the blob creature became nothing but a pile of white liquid and screams before evaporating into nothing.

Byleth's breath came in ragged pants. None of them could speak. She had thought she had seen every horror the Agarthans had to offer, but clearly they still had a few tricks. She stumbled toward Seteth and Edelgard, but Flayn reached them first and knelt beside her father with a sob.

He ruffled her hair weakly. "It's all right, Flayn."

"It is not all right! First Mother and then Rhea and now..." She summoned healing magic and put a hand over the dark, oozing gash. "You can't leave me alone. You can't."

"I won't. I only need a moment to rest."

Edelgard stiffened. "So very human, " she muttered.

"We'll be happy to give you a few minutes." Claude's voice seemed as superficially light as ever, but Byleth had known him long enough to know when steel lay beneath the silk. "It'll probably take a bit for Edelgard to explain what that thing was."

Edelgard stared at the remains of the Beast and at the cairn. "Thales name for it was the Hegemon. A Beast almost impossible to kill and who retained its mind and ability to speak. It could command both humans and Beasts, hence the name."

Claude whistled. "That would be really useful, if you didn't mind becoming hideous. And if Thales wasn't lying through his teeth. That thing couldn't speak, and it practically blew itself up." He furrowed his brow. "Wait. You said the power wasn't meant for it. Who was it meant for?"

A heavy silence descended over them, and the hairs of Byleth's neck stood on end. She knew the answer. She wished she didn't. "It was meant for the Hegemon of Fódlan. For you."

Edelgard met her gaze. It was the Emperor who stood before her now. "Does it shock you? I was always willing to do what must be done. If I spared myself, how could I look the families of the dead in the eye? Your church already thought me a monster. I saw no reason not to take the form of one."

"Because you could have killed yourself!" Her heart was as still as ever but Byleth's pulse thrummed erratically. "Are you so anxious to commit suicide that you would discard your humanity?"

Her eyes were hard and her voice was ice. "I thought I was supposed to be the one whose views were too narrow. Or does every person with the misfortune of deformity discard their humanity as well? I would not have been what we fought." Her gaze landed on the Crest Stone. "My twin Crests would allow me to maintain control instead of becoming a Beast in truth. It still could."

"That thing was repulsive." Lysithea shivered. "But if the situation ever became truly dire and a twin Crest could truly control the transformation, perhaps it would be worth it. I don't have very long anyway."

"No!" Byleth and Edelgard said at the same time.

Byleth moved so she could look at both of them. Her precious student, her once and current infatuation, both of them had suffered so much and lost so much that they imagined the only way they could redeem it was to throw their lives away. "Neither of you will be transforming into anything. That's an order. Swear it to me."

"I promise," Lysithea whispered.

Edelgard's gaze was blank. "I will do likewise."

"It's for the best. Your lives matter far too much."

They stared at her with guilty looks, not believing her but trying to pretend they did. Byleth frowned, _If I am a goddess, let me give them a desire to live._

There was no answer.


	12. The Siege of Fhirdiad

Fhirdiad's walls had frightened Edelgard as a child. Enbarr depended on Fort Merceus for defense, so the rough gray stone seemed impossibly forbidding, another reminder that she was trapped far from home. She was too old for childish fancies, but there was a tightness in her chest as she surveyed the walls for the first time in years.

"If you told me a year that I'd be trying to conquer Fhirdiad like this," said Count Bergliez beside her, "I would have called you a liar."

"Not trying, Bergliez. Succeeding." The wind went through her cloak, but she forced herself to stay still. Hard days lay ahead for the army, and her men with looking to her for guidance almost more than when she had been emperor. "Her Majesty will see us through."

"I admire your commitment to your abdication," he said in a tone that suggested nothing of the kind. "She's far better than Arundel, but after all I have sacrificed to restore Adrestia to glory, to have it end at the hands of a common mercenary..."

"I won't hear such talk. She isn't common and never has been." Her eyes narrowed and she dropped her voice so that none but him could hear. "You never sacrificed. It was me and my siblings who were tortured to give you your perfect puppet to fulfill your dreams of faded glory. You 'sacrificed' a stepbrother you hated."

He was silent for a long moment. "I suppose I should have put a dagger in the former Prime Minister the day that you and that thing that wasn't Arundel returned from Fhirdiad. And for all that, you abdicated to save me and my men. I will never not grateful for that."

"Hmph." _I did it for Caspar, not you._

Byleth's magically amplified voice rang through the air loud enough that Edelgard felt the vibrations. "Cornelia! Surrender and throw open the gates! You cannot hold Faerghus."

Hours stretched by without response. Byleth must have known that Cornelia would rather kill every person in the capital then surrender. But it was a formality that was carried out without fail so that those who shed blood could sleep easier at night. Edelgard had never found much use for the rules of chivalry. There was nothing honorable about taking another life, and the most compassionate course of action was to do what you could to end the war as quickly as possible. Then again, that line of thinking had led her to become far closer to Agartha than she'd wanted.

Her hatred of siege warfare was, however, firmly intact. There was nothing to do but wait and very little to relieve the tedium. Hammers and axes sounded at all hours of the day and night as they worked to build the siege weapons that were their only hope of victory—if they didn't die of thirst before they ever met Cornelia's troops. A few meager cups were distributed to officers and soldiers alike and the knowledge that Byleth and Seteth were enduring the same thing on the plateau did nothing to cool her parched lips or wash the filth from her body. She hadn't looked like this, felt like this, since the day her cell door had opened and she had collapsed into her father's arms.

"Is it true that the Royal Palace in Fhirdiad has heated baths?" Lysithea asked her on the sixth day as they played chess together in the tent.

"Dimitri said so, but I never saw them." Edelgard moved her knight. "I only went to the palace once and that ended with a red-haired boy locking me in the vaults. My uncle was in a state when the guards finally got me out. Check."

Lysithea shuddered. "Trapped in the dark with all those bones and Crest Stones. It must have been terrifying."

"Honestly? I had been trapped at my uncle's house for so long that it was an adventure. It was only later that I learned being trapped in the dark was a bad thing."

Lysithea put a hand over hers, the lightest pressure. "Once we take Fhirdiad, we'll find that the rest of them and make sure no one else goes through what we did."

Edelgard forced herself to smile. "There were days that promise of that were the only thing that kept me going." She turned her hand so that she could squeeze Lysithea's. "And having people like you around."

Lysithea colored but didn't pull her hand back. "Well, someone had to keep you from wallowing in self-pity. Anyway, the first thing I'm going to do when we win here is take a nice long bath."

"I'll drink to that. As soon as I have something to drink."

Someone shouted nearby, and they bolted from their chairs, the game forgotten. It didn't take long to find the source of the disturbance. A cluster of guards stood outside the water tent, holding a green-haired soldier between them. His skin was pale but his eyes flashed with defiance. Edelgard sighed. It was only a matter of time before someone tried to circumvent the rationing system. It was a miracle that everyone had obeyed until now. "What's all this?"

"I just wanted a drink. My insides feel like paper. You can't expect a man to fight to the death when he feels like that."

"What's your name. Where are you from?"

"Lukas, Your Majesty. Er, ma'am. My family has farmed Varley lands since Great Emperor Wilhelm."

Edelgard pinched her nose. Despite them all fighting under one flag, matters of discipline were still handled by commanders from the same nation to prevent accusations of score-settling. Which made Lukas her problem, unfortunately. "The punishment for attempted water theft is two strokes with the cane. Guards, take him away."

Lukas trembled. "You can't. Please. My brothers and sisters died for you at Gronder. Have mercy."

Edelgard wished he was lying, but she had grown too familiar with that precise tone of agony to believe that he was. The slaughter at Gronder would follow her all the days of her life. "The person whose water you stole deserve some mercy as well." She signaled the guards and turned her back.

Lysithea took her hand again and Edelgard flashed her a grateful smile. She had done the right thing, no question, but sometimes that was no comfort at all. She looked up at the cloudless sky. They needed rain or a break in the wall or something before things got worse. But despite Byleth's mysterious powers, there was no Goddess to hear the cries of the desperate. There was only, as ever, humanity. "Could you see that Lukas gets the rest of my rations for the day? He'll need them to recover. Don't tell him where it's from."

Humanity was all they had, but humanity had limits. Edelgard's days were increasingly consumed with breaking up fights between former Alliance and Empire forces and meting out punishment for infractions large and small. And as their water supply dwindled, she could no longer offer up her own rations to suffer in their stead. If she had still been emperor, she would have consented to whatever atrocity Thales demanded if only he could deliver victory.

The day the siege weapons were to be completed, she was reminded of what that would have meant. A flash of red hair appeared on the battlements. Cornelia. None of them were the type to waste a chance at an easy victory, and every mage and archer within range struck at her. Cornelia wreathed herself in light and the projectiles fell harmlessly away as she laughed.

"My my." Her voice was amplified as Byleth's had been. "You have been here such a long time. I thought you would have died of boredom. You certainly look as if you're dying. I've been so terribly rude in not speaking to you at all. It's only courteous off me to remind you what awaits those who defy the rightful ruler of Faerghus. Say hello, Rodrigue.

Duke Fraldarius? His death had never been confirmed by either side, but he had been assumed killed along with the rest of Dimitri's army. The figure Cornelia had forced beside her was too far away to see clearly, but he had Rodrigue's dark hair and blue clothing. He struggled in his bonds as Cornelia removed something from her cloak. "It did take some refinement to discover how to use a Crest Stone to transform a Crest-bearer into a Beast without years of exposure, but I managed."

She spoke words in an incantation that Edelgard didn't recognize and thrust the Crest Stone at Rodrigue. He screamed as the dark ooze enveloped him. His body twisted and grew until he was little more than misshapen limbs and an enormous head with flesh encased in stone. "You see how useless the so-called blessings of the Goddess are. I would tell you to turn back, but I rather enjoy the prospect of destroying you once and for all." With that, Cornelia and the thing that had been Rodrigue vanished.

A pall fell over the camp. Soldiers murmured. Edelgard could well imagine what they said. She was accustomed to fighting monsters, but for the common soldier, they were little more than campfire tales. Tomorrow she would have to ask every man on this mountain to possibly give their lives. They wouldn't mutiny, probably, but they would be dreading the Beast. Cornelia's cruelty was matched only by her cleverness.

The attack was planned for an hour past midnight to allow for the siege towers and battering ram to be moved under cover of darkness. Edelgard stood outside her tent, watching and rubbing her hands against the cold as her soldiers made the last of their preparations. In the old days, she would have delivered a speech to rally them, but the words stuck in her throat. They fought because someone had to be the sacrifice in exchange for Byleth to have a hope of victory. Edelgard had chosen the forlorn hope for herself, but she had chosen it for the soldiers as well. Once more, thousands would die on her order.

A figure approached. "It's me," Byleth called.

Edelgard relaxed. "Your Majesty." She bowed. "Preparations are proceeding apace, and we should have no problems supporting Duke Riegan's siege troops."

"So I see. Tell them that the first person over the top may have as much water and wine as he likes." She smiled at the cheers of those who overheard, though it was too wide and too bright for a real smile. "When the walls come down and we take back Fhirdiad, it's wine and sweets for everyone."

More cheering, so they didn't notice Byleth leading Edelgard away. They walked together for some time in silence, until the camp was nothing more than pinpricks of torchlight.

The sky was clear and the full moon gave Byleth a soft glow as she turned back to Edelgard. "Claude did some analysis. Even if everything goes right, half of those men are going to die. And I promised them wine." She buried her face in her hands. "How did you stand lying so much?"

Edelgard gently pried her hands loose. When she had been a student and hating herself for her dangerous infatuation, she had wished for some sign that the unflappable Professor Eisner was as mortal as the rest of them. After all these months, after learning the secret of the Ashen Demon, she felt only pain and tenderness. "Because every soldier has their role to play, and it's the duty of the Emperor to inspire her people."

"And I happen to be good at that for some reason. But I keep wondering how many people are going to be dead by the time we defeat Cornelia. I wonder why I'll have to sacrifice for victory. If"…" She reached for Edelgard, her fingers hovering over the outline of her cheek. "Promise me that you'll survive. Promise."

Edelgard's breath caught. It wasn't the first time they had stood like this or the first time that Byleth had demanded such a promise. Her blood hummed all the same. She had thought the part of her that could feel desire had been destroyed alongside everything else that was simply Edelgard. Even when she had discovered otherwise, it had seemed useless. But Byleth was looking at her as if her own life depended on Edelgard making that promise. It couldn't be true. Her old infatuation couldn't be requited after she had so thoroughly lost herself. The idea was as much nonsense as the Book of Seiros.

But she wanted it to be true. The realization knocked the breath from her lungs. She wanted Byleth. Selfishly. She wanted to kiss her and run her fingers through her hair. She had denied herself the pleasures of courtship when she was in school, had had nothing but one despairing night with Dorothea before the Battle at Enbarr because the thought of dying a virgin was too humiliating. But she wanted something more than sex born of fear or playing at courtship with her only friend. She wanted...to entrust her heart the way she had entrusted her crown: to Byleth alone.

"Edelgard?" Byleth frowned at her. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, no, no." She deserved to be sniped by one of Cornelia's archers for such woolgathering. "I promise I will do my best to be one of the lucky ones. I'd ask you to do the same, but you hardly need luck."

"Then I'll give all my luck to you. Because if you die out there, I could destroy all of Agartha, and it still won't feel like a victory." There was a shine to her eyes that might have been tears or moonlight. "I've been a coward. And an idiot. Nothing for it now, I suppose. But the next time I see you, we are going to celebrate." She stroked her gloved hand over Edelgard's cheek as if committing the lines of her face to memory. Edelgard drank in the warmth as if it were water.

A horn sounded. "It's almost time," she whispered. "You have to go, Your Majesty."

"I do." She pulled her hand back. "For Adrestia. For Fódlan. For humanity."

"For humanity."

Her troops, the pride of Adrestia who had fought for her at Gronder and Enbarr, the wyverns of Ordelia. the knights of Gaspard and Rowe, all those who sought absolution for sins real and imagined, assembled. Their armor glinted in the torchlight. A dark shape loomed in their midst: the one tower that would remain with her. They had ladders and incendiaries, but it wasn't enough. Any of their troops who made it inside before the defenses collapsed were happy accidents.

She mounted her horse and turned to face them. "Many of you fought for me when I was Emperor. I ask you to fight today for the same reasons we always did: to free humanity from those who control it in secret. Make for the walls and don't turn back." She raised her axe. "Forward!"

They charged down the mountain. Shouts and the thud of hooves and the flap of wings filled Edelgards ears. Soon the noise was joined by the clang of bells as sentries stationed atop the battlements summoned their comrades. Arrows and stones whizzed by. Edelgard rode on over the trenches freshly filled with stones to ease their passage. The siege tower crawled forward. A stone missed Edelgard by inches. Men screamed as their mounts fell under them.

"Wyverns!" she shouted. The beating of wings grew louder as the wyverns overtook her. The riders took oilcloths from their saddlebags and the night sky was alive with flame. They made for the battlements. The enemy arrows shifted skyward. One by one the flames went out as wyverns plummeted to the ground. Edelgard grit her teeth. Most of them would fall to archers or the ballista, but as long as some got through to deliver their fiery payloads, it would be worth it.

"Forward!" The battlements were illuminated by firelight. Now it was the defenders who screamed. Edelgard hoped they had gotten some of Cornelia's mages. "Left flank, focus fire on that section of wall. Right flank, screen the tower."

The stench of blood and smoke invaded her nostrils. Just like Gronder. She kept her gaze fixed firmly ahead, but there was no escaping the carnage around her. Horses shot full of arrows. Men screaming in pain for the Goddess or their mothers or both. She had always thought that she hated sieges because of the time they took, but maybe this was the true reason. Her cavalry and infantry could do little but endure the projectiles that the defenders rained down on them as the tower creaked on. "Keep going! For Adrestia! For the Empire!"

But for the first time since her coronation, those behind her hesitated. Edelgard spared a glance backwards and blanched. Bodies littered the ground. Disfigured by fire, bludgeoned by stones, skewered by arrows or crushed by their mounts. She caught a glimpse of the frightened faces of the survivors. She had seen such a look before. They were a moment from retreat and handing Cornelia a rout.

"You heard her!" Bergliez's voice rang through the air. "Are you so craven that you would let a worm that scurries in the dark hold the city you were promised? Those who fight today will birth a united Fódlan as it was meant to be. I won't run from the honor I've wanted all my life. Onward and to the flames of torment with any who desert the Emperor!"

He spurred onward and... they followed. Edelgard swallowed hard and joined them. The walls of Fhirdiad loomed close enough that she could have thrown a rock of her own at them. The infantry surged around her dodging flames and blasts of magic that left the soil pitted and scarred. The vanguard reached the walls. Bergliez was at their head shouting encouragement as the scaling ladders flew up. The tower brought up the rear. Edelgard shivered. They were going to establish a foothold after all.

Panicked Dukedom soldiers scurried along the ramparts. Fear made them sloppy and the arrows that had been so deadly now sailed harmlessly by. Bergliez scaled the ladder, shouting as he went. Off in the distance, new sounds of battle joined the din. Byleth's and Claude's soldiers had begun their own advance.

A mage appeared above Bergliez. His skin was deathly pale and covered with arcane tattoos. Myson, one of Thales more skilled underlings who had forged the Flame Emperor armor for Edelgard so long ago. His lips curved into a smile. Black flame swirled around Bergliez. He shuddered and grunted as oozing sores appeared where the fire touched him. Edelgard watched in horror as they grew and Myson held aloft a Crest Stone. He was creating another Rodrigue.

Bergliez locked gazes with her as the blackness encased him. "Your Majesty...don't let me...betray the Empire."

Edelgard understood. She summoned the power of the Crest of Seiros and leapt into the air higher than any human could reach. Her axe flew out, cleaving his head from his shoulders. A blast of magical energy suddenly without focus now that he was dead hit Edelgard in the chest and tumbled into a trench among the corpses. Their clammy limbs and Bergliez's corpse smothered her and for a moment she was once more beneath the palace with what remained of her siblings. Her breath stopped. She was going to die here among the dead, the idiot who led Adrestia to ruin twice over.

"Dad!" Caspar's voice cut through her fog. Only his hands and a flash of silver-blue hair were visible as he clawed at the bodies. "Edelgard."

He lifted her from the corpses. There were tears in his eyes as he stared at what remained of Bergliez. "Dad! Dad!"

Another figure appeared. Ferdinand. He touched Caspar's shoulder. "We can't afford to grieve here." He started to pull Caspar and Edelgard toward safety.

Caspar jerked away. "You're right we can't!" He screamed and cast his gaze toward the ramparts." You hear that, ugly? I'm going to make you pay for killing my father!"

"That's what they all say," came Myson's voice. Dark shapes appeared before the walls. Soldiers, not of the Dukedom, but Agartha. "But this is a fine opportunity to go hunting. To me, my friends and leave none of the beasts alive. The hour of our vengeance approaches."

Edelgard steadied herself and grabbed the sword of a fallen soldier. "You won't find us such easy prey. She called to to any soldier who could hear. "Hold the line. Hold it against those who would steal your very humanity." All they had to do was hold on and buy Byleth time. She hoped that she was strong enough to last and make the blood shed today means something.

* * *

Byleth looked down at the rocks and dirt three storeys below as a wave of dizziness washed over her. If she'd known leading the assault on Fhirdiad would mean sitting in a very exposed siege tower as it rumbled across the plateau, she would've passed the job to someone who wasn't afraid of heights. At least up here with her students, she didn't have to be the Emperor or Enlightened One. "I think I'm going to be sick."

Leonie frowned and edged as far away as the tight quarters permitted. "Please don't. This is my last clean shirt." She gripped her bow. "Sure wish I was on a horse right now."

"You two have no appreciation for the advantages afforded by height." Claude sat atop his wyvern, flying next to them and ahead of Ingrid and the pegasus knights. "Such as watching Cornelia's people panic. See for yourself."

Byleth took the offered spyglass. Dukedom soldier stared slackjawed and unmoving at the army that had been on the other side of the city a few hours ago. Even some of the Agarthan mages were shaking. Sounds of other battles echoed in the distance, a reminder of the cost of all that shock. Let all her students survive. Let Edelgard survive so that Byleth could say all the things that she should have found the courage for long ago.

If the previous weeks had been tedium punctuated with occasional bursts of danger, the next few hours managed to be tedium and danger all at once. Her engineers had fashioned a battering ram that could smash through the curtain wall and the inner wall besides, but getting all of Claude's ingenious contraptions into position meant dodging rocks and fire while the wheeled platforms moved with the speed and grace of a turtle. Soldiers fell under the hail of missiles. Byleth's hands burned with the urge to turn back time, even though there was nothing she could do in a handful of seconds to spare them.

At last, the battering ram was in position. The first strike caused the curtain wall to tremble. Again and again her soldiers slammed into the walls and mortar dust fell like snow. Cracks sprouted in the stone. Dukedom soldiers cursed. Mages threw down blasts of fell magic that smelled of sulfur and made Byleth feel faint just being near.

The strikes slowed. Ah of course. There was magic not taught at Garreg Mach, dark magic that sapped will and strength. Lysithea was a master at it and those who had forced her second Crest on her even more so. If this contagion were allowed to spread, her army would drop from exhaustion.

But Byleth knew how to give people strength. She had done it for Edelgard. She closed her eyes and thought of how they were her soldiers, fighting because they believed in her and her dream of a world where people of all cultures and backgrounds lived and learned together and none were despised because of their lineage. Those soldiers had families and sweethearts too that they wanted to see again. She would take a portion of their fatigue upon herself. Someone with the power of the progenitor goddess should be able to do that.

Golden light spread over the battlefield until the darkness was no more than smoky wisps that drifted towards her. Byleth huddled atop the tower. Her limbs were heavy, her insides felt as if they had been scraped clean away and her mouth was papery with the need for water she didn't have. But the soldiers below resumed their assault on the stone.

Someone passed a waterskin to her. "You need this more than I do," Leonie said and forced it to her lips. "Captain Jeralt would be proud."

"He'd remind you that you need water too."

A faint blush spread across her cheeks. "Not me. You."

Cracks became fissures until at last section of the curtain wall gave way, Men atop the ramparts and battlements shouted in terror and fell back as the battering ram thrust forward until it was almost at the main wall. Soldiers that had been too weak to move hours ago let out a cheer to shake the ground. Even Byleth managed a weak smile.

Some of the defenders recovered themselves enough to throw down casks of flame. Those who had been manning the wheeled platform sprang away as the battering ram was set alight. Claude's voice rang through the din. "Help it along. It'll only get in our way now." Those atop the remaining wall realized their mistake and poured buckets of water on the blaze.

Those in the towers and atop winged mounts were at last close enough to exchange fire. Leonie nocked and fired arrows with a speed that truly would have thrilled Jeralt. Byleth gripped the Sword of the Creator. Even the hilt felt heavy.

Ingrid flew close beside. "No, Professor. You'll need your strength for the battle inside the city. You saved us. Now let us protect you."

A great spar of flame sailed in front of the tower and for a delirious moment Byleth thought it was a javelin of light. The smoke stinging her eyes and nose brought her back to reality. The wood burned oddly. So this was the fire that could burn water that Edelgard had warned her about. Water was scarce but vinegar they had in abundance. Those in towers cut open sacks of the stuff and extinguished the fire. The way was clear._ Thank you, Edelgard._

They rained down suppressing fire on the dukedom soldiers, Arrows and stone, magic and thrown lances, sailed all around Byleth as the allied troops fought for a foothold. She not sit here like an invalid. Byleth drew the Sword of the Creator once more and Ingrid was too occupied with the press of battle to stop her. The sword still felt heavy, but she held it aloft so that all could see the red glow. "For the Goddess!" she said with a twinge of guilt and hoped the unfortunate whose bones she wielded didn't mind being a totem.

Smoke of ordinary flame choked one of the defense towers. The wall was on fire. Defenders rushed away in a coughing panic. This was their chance. "Cut loose the screen!" One of the wattle screens fell and Leonie and the others surged across the makeshift bridge.

"I suppose it's too much to ask for you to remain here." Ingrid found a section of clear wall and dismounted. "I'm not Edelgard, but allow me to be your sword and shield as we take back my home."

Byleth took her hand and lumbered onto the walls. "For Faerghus."

"For Faerghus."


	13. Their Finest Hour

Edelgard ached. Even the strength the Agarthans had imposed on her had its limits. She had lost track of how long she and Myson had traded the roles of cat and mouse as the mages had chased them around the base of the mountain only to be cut down. Bodies of both sides were everywhere that she looked, but she saw far too much crimson and silver

She dared to stop to catch her breath. She couldn't see the plateau from here, but the wind carried to the ring of battle to her ears. She had no faith to pray, but she could wish. Byleth must return to her. Even if her feelings were fruitless yearnings , as long as she and Byleth stood side by side once more and Cornelia was defeated, Edelgard would be content.

Caspar and Ferdinand appeared, hair plastered to their scalps with sweat and blood. Ferdinand took great gulping breaths. "We appear to have earned a moment of respite."

"I don't want to rest. I want to kill the people who killed—" A shudder overtook Caspar. "Dad. He's gone. He's really gone." His body shook with sobs as tears fell freely down his face.

Edelgard winced. She hated watching grief. Wallowing in pain seemed even more useless than wallowing in guilt. You used that pain to spur you onward or you died. "Yes, he is, but we have to keep moving."

Caspar's head snapped up and he rounded on her, his eyes shining with tears. "Shut up! You killed him! You chopped off his head and we left him there to rot!"

"If I hadn't, he would have become one of the Beasts and we would have died with him. Do you think your father would have wanted that?"

"I guess not." He screamed and kicked some pebbles hard enough to send them flying. "Promise me, Edelgard. Promise me that jerk will get what's coming to him."

"More likely that you beasts will get what's coming to you." Myson said. "We will drive you from Faerghus and then the world."

Edelgard turned to find four mages, Myson at their head. A pitiful force under normal circumstances, but she was tired. Nothing for it. She gripped her axe. "And we will drive you into the ground."

Magic whirled around them, dark spikes of energy seeking to impale them. But Hubert had taught Edelgard the rudiments of Agarthan magic and how to avoid it. She waited for the telltale burst of purple and black before sidestepping and cleaving her attacker in two, Still, the remaining mages kept up the assault, striking them with magic blasts that never quite found the target but forced them to dodge with increasingly sluggish reflexes. It was only a matter of time before one of them made a mistake and Myson moved in for the kill.

Edelgard leapt to one side to avoid another spike and stumbled over a lose stone. Time slowed as she put her hands out to brace her fall. Ferdinand and Caspar were locked in battles of their own and could not help her. Myson smiled and prepared more magic. This was how she was going to die. On the battlefield, alone but for her hated enemies and two classmates who held little love for her and without seeing Byleth again. An ignominious end for the Flame Emperor.

The kill strike never came. The air hummed with a different kind of magic. Edelgard hauled herself to her feet and watched in wonder as silver and gold lights hit the mages in the chest. Her gaze stopped the source of her rescue and found Lysithea, gripping Thyrsus and flanked by mages wearing the arms of House Ordelia. She clicked her tongue. "You really should be more careful, Edelgard."

Myson's face contorted into a mask of rage. "How dare you use one of those weapons against me! Know before I consign you to the eternal flames that our battle here has only ensured the death of everyone you love. Come and waste your remaining time."

Edelgard's blood ran cold. That was an oddly specific threat. Any mages with sense would have retreated in the face of overwhelming odds, but Myson and his confederates remained. She stumbled forward to stand beside Ferdinand. "We need to capture one," she whispered. "Find out their plan."

He nodded. Myson would take his secrets to the grave, but the one next to him, who was always a moment behind their comrades as if having to mentally rehearse every spell cast, was promising. Caspar sunk his axe in one of the remaining mages and charged toward Myson with a roar. His armor flashed in the light, his strikes wild with grief. Perfect.

"Die! You b—bastard!" His scream was a sob. Myson's hands glowed with fell power, but it was no good. Caspar lept atop him, striking him with the axe again and again until was barely recognizable as humanoid. One of the Ordelia mages hit the Agarthan Caspar had abandoned with a blast of lightning and she stumbled backward and fell to the ground.

And then there was one.

The mage's hands trembled almost imperceptibly as they surveyed their opposition. Edelgard allowed the power of the Crest of Flames to shimmer along her body and remind them what they was up against. "You must know that you can't win. Why throw your life away for a madman's scheme?"

The voice behind the filter was so like that of the Flame Emperor that it was uncanny. Feminine. Young. "I will never betray Agartha."

Ferdinand stepped forward. "And we would never ask you to. But a nation is more than the mad dreams of its leaders. Have the likes of Myson and Cornelia done anything for Agartha or have they only served their lust for vengeance and power?" He lay his blade on the ground. "Tell us what they are planning and we will allow you to leave."

Edelgard hissed. He had no right to make such a promise. Ferdinand had always been a bit of a fool, but this was idiotic even by his standards. Agartha was a poison that must be purged from the world for it to be truly free. As long as even one survived, they would continue to find pawns for the quest to eradicate humanity. Lysithea paled and the Ordelia mages clenched their fists. They knew.

The Agarthan shuddered. "I don't want to die." She held out her hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Cornelia is sending men into the vaults to gather the Crest Stones stored there. When your friends break through the walls, they'll find an army of Demonic Beasts."

It was Edelgard's turn to shudder. There had been dozens or hundreds of Crest Stones in the vaults. Byleth and the army would be slaughtered. "Have they already taken the Stones?"

"I don't think so. We were supposed to delay any reinforcements, but Myson decided sport was more important. Please, I've told you all I know. Let me leave."

Emperor Edelgard would have struck her down without a moment's hesitation. She still should. The mage could warn Cornelia or attack the moment their backs were turned or any number of things that meant the blood of thousands would be on Edelgard's hands. Cold-hearted pragmatism demanded that she act.

But what had her pragmatism ever done except cost her her friends and her crown and murder innocents? Pragmatism would have left her a corpse on the steps of the throne room. If she wished to leave her bloodsoaked past behind her, she must forge a different path. "You may go "

"Really?" The mage removed her mask and threw it to the ground to wipe her face. She looked to be around Lysithea's age with sharp, almost skeletal features and stringy white hair. "Thank you." Her voice was high and quavering. "I won't forget this kindness." She vanished in a beam of purple light.

Caspar let out another scream and Edelgard wished she could join him. "We should have killed her. She's a bad guy." He scowled at Myson's remains. "At least now maybe my father can rest in peace."

"I agree," Lysithea said. "Who knows how many she'll go on to torture or kill?"

"Far fewer than will be slain if Cornelia's plan is carried out. And it would ignoble of us to break our word, not to mention discouraging future cooperation. I am proud of you, Edelgard."

Snow must have fallen in the Valley of Torment for Ferdinand to say that. "It's too late for regret. All that matters is stopping those Beasts." Even if she could rally her forces, they couldn't break through the walls and enter the vaults in time. "We'll have to teleport."

The Ordelia mages looked at each other. "I'm afraid we only specialized in purely offensive magic. None of us know how to teleport, especially to a place we've never been."

"I can bring in a strike force. One or two people." Lysithea's voice cracked a bit. "Edelgard, you'll have to describe the vaults very precisely so I can aim the spell."

She looked almost as pale as the Agarthans as she spoke. Of course they were all exhausted from the long hours of battle, but this was more than that. Fear. Lysithea was afraid of the dark. And they had none of Claude's lanterns. Going to the vaults would be the same for her as unleashing a horde of rats on Edelgard.

She longed to lie down and sleep for a day or more, but she couldn't while the army was in danger. "Thales taught me the spell so I could fulfill my role as Flame Emperor. It'll be much easier to cast it since I've been there."

"But Edelgard—"

"Go to the battlefield. They have a greater need for your magic than we do."

"Don't take such a patronizing tone." Lysithea huffed but then her face softened as she squeezed Edelgard's shoulder. "I forbid you to die down there. Good luck."

Ferdinand and Caspar each took one of Edelgard's hands, she muttered words she hadn't spoken since the Holy Tomb, and the world lurched sideways.

Edelgard landed on her hands and knees on a rough stone floor. She retched and likely would have vomited if there had been anything left her stomach. The room spun. She forced herself to breathe. Teleportation sickness always passed, no matter how it felt in the moment.

Ferdinand hauled Edelgard to her feet. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness enough for her to see brick caked in grime. The air was stale. The boy who had trapped them here—Sylvain—had told her and Dimitri that the ghosts of every Blaiddyd roamed these passages, and looking around at the bones made it easy to see why the vaults would foster ghost stories. Well, if the spirits of the royal line did linger here, she couldn't offend them more than she already had. She took the rightmost passage, which sloped gently downward toward the heart of the vaults and hopefully their prize. As she did, different ghosts haunted her.

_"Do you think that there really are ghosts down here?" Dimitri shivered in the darkness._

_"Half my teachers say that the Goddess takes everyone to her side after they die and half of them say that we just stop existing. Either way, no ghosts." It was dark and there were probably all kinds of scary things down here, but she was away from her uncle and guards who never let her have a moment's peace. "We're a prince and a princess and we're not scared of any ghosts."_

"_A princess?"_

_Edelgard cringed. Her uncle had told her that she must never tell anyone who she truly was or write to her father or siblings. Evil men would find them if she did. But Edelgard was tired of being caged. "My father is Ionius IX of Adrestia."_

Edelgard clapped a hand over her mouth. Her uncle—her real uncle—hadn't been playing politics when he'd abducted her to Faerghus. He'd been trying ro save her from Aegir and the Agarthans. Had her brief, innocent rebellion set in motion Arundel's death and all that came after? Only one person knew and he would lie to twist the knife out of spite.

She stumbled down, into the depths, to the resting places of the Blaiddyds who'd been loyal dukes and counts of a united Empire. Not all of them, to be sure—the tombs of the original Ten Elites were lost to history—but enough that she could feel the weight of those who had lived in a world at once so near and diametrically opposed to the one she had sought to create. She wondered what they would have thought of her.

They came to the circular chamber. The stone here was old, intricately carved in a style that hadn't been popular in either the Empire or the Kingdom for over a thousand years. Weapons and armor that were crude by current standards but looked as if they had been forged yesterday stood sentinel. Magic thrummed through the dead air and made her hair stand on end. Blood red stones, more than Edelgard had seen in one place outside the Holy Tomb. They seemed to call to her, to the blood that had been forced on her. Whispering of power and secrets. Only take us, they seemed to say, and you will have the power to make your dreams come true.

"You feel it too, do you not?" Ferdinand whispered. "There is power enough in this place to destroy all of Fódlan."

"What are you guys talking about?" Caspar asked, a little too loudly. "Or is this one of those moments that I should be glad that I don't have a Crest?"

Edelgard stared at the light, entranced. This power made monsters of men, both literally and figuratively. Thales had used them to turn the condemned of Adrestia into fodder for her war, and the nobles bred humans like livestock to use them to their full potential. Dark power, but power all the same. She had been ready to wield it, not through Aymr but through her very body. Fatigue invaded every inch of her, but even one of those stones would allow her to have strength enough to take on all the forces Agartha could muster and more. Soldiers wouldn't be butchered as they had today. She could protect them, protect _Byleth._

If she didn't became another shrieking beast.

Ferdinand tore his gaze away. "Well, we seem to have beaten our enemy here, at any rate. But I confess that I am a loss as to what to do with these."

"Destroy them." That was what she had meant to do at the Holy Tomb, before Byleth had taken back most of the stones and Metodey had scurried off with the rest. The church and the Agarthans had fought over them for centuries and they had only been tools of oppression against humanity. Break them and ordinary mortals would find strength.

Strength to turn the fields red with blood.

The sound of footsteps filled the corridor behind them. Caspar and Ferdinand looked at each other and then at her, their faces almost skeletal with exhaustion but resolute all the same. "Edelgard, destroy the stones," Ferdinand said. "We'll hold them off and buy you time."

"What?" Edelgard's own exhaustion must have been playing tricks with her mind. "You'll be killed."

"Probably." Caspar shrugged. "But if we don't destroy those stones, then a lot more people are going to die. Including Byleth."

He was right. The burn in her chest told her that much. There was a time she would have sent them to their deaths without so much as an eyeblink. But now... Dorothea's, Bernadetta's, Hubert's voices, all those who had died for her dream, swirled around her, yet more ghosts. She could not bear to add to their number. "I'll be the last of the Black Eagles. You can't."

"I fear we must," Ferdinand said with a half-smile. "I know you do not care for such things, but I believe that I was wrong about you. You are a noble and not a tyrant after all. It has been an honor. "

Edelgard's vision blurred with tears and she moved hastily to wipe them away. It would not do for them to see her cry, not now. "An honor to fight alongside both of you for what was truly right. Your sacrifices won't be in vain."

"Then come, Caspar!" Ferdinand said with a little of the old brightness. "Let's show these ruffians what a true noble is made of."

"Heh." Caspar's voice shook. "Do you think my father would be proud of me now?"

"I don't know. I am."

He smiled through his own tears. "You're all right, Edelgard. Tell Ashe to look after the cat, okay?"

They ran down the corridor, their shouts mingled with the _clang_ of steel on steel. Edelgard turned on shaking legs back to the Crest Stones. Those thrice-cursed Crest Stones. Her classmates, her...friends were out there dying because of Thales and Cornelia's insanity. And she was permitting it because she wasn't strong enough. Just like Dorothea and Petra. She was tired of people dying because of her weakness.

The Crest Stones glinted. She had been ready to transform herself for ambition, once. If she could keep this from ever happening again... The sounds of battle grew fainter and then died away entirely. Her ears strained in the silence, waiting for Ferdinand and Caspar's victory shouts and for the miracles that had happened so many times.

But the silence stretched on. Edelgard grabbed the smallest stone and shoved it in her pocket. Then, with a last scream she sent a fireball at the rest and vanished as the flames consumed the last of those blighted rocks that had existed too far beyond their time. The remaining stone seemed to burn as well, searing hot even through fur and wool. But it was nothing compared to what she had already endured.

She teleported, not to Lysithea, but to the deserted camp. Her rucksack lay beside her bedroll as it always did. Byleth would hate that she had lied, but if the day ever came that the Hegemon was necessay, Edelgard would endure that hatred and call it a bargain, She was reformed but one thing had not changed: she would sacrifice anything for Fòdlan's new dawn.


	14. Liberation and Its Discontents

Fhirdiad was choked with death. Smoke billowed from the remnants of flame arrows, the foul stench clinging to everything. Soldiers from both sides lay dead or dying where they fell, while those who remained on their feet used sword or lance or magic to drive back tides of silver or blue. Byleth's body ached with fatigue. The rising sun bathed the stones in a pale glow, but there was no new dawn, only the foot-by-foot slog toward the palace and Cornelia.

The Sword of the Creator was warm in her hand. It seemed almost have a life of its own, whipping in an arc to slash at her foes when Byleth only wanted to stop. Not to rest or catch her breath but merely to hold back the hands of time and let the universe be consumed by nothing, if only for a moment. Her thoughts, her ambitions, everything that had awoken when she had thrown herself in front of Kosta's axe seemed walled off while the Ashen Demon did her grim work.

And still the Dukedom soldiers didn't retreat, as if each moment she spent cutting them down was a moment that might bring salvation. "What's Cornelia planning?" she wondered aloud.

"She doesn't strike me as the type to share plans with the rank-and-file," Claude said. Like the rest of the army, he was covered in grime, but his half-smile remained fixed firmly in place. "Guessing that it involves something really big." His eyebrows went up and he pointed behind her. "Like that."

Byleth followed his gaze to an enormous golem looming over the palace courtyard. It roughly resembled an armored man wielding a sword, but the armor was of no style used in Fódlan or beyond. And yet sick feeling of familiarity settled in her stomach. Edelgard had warned her of Agarthan technology, but it was more than that. She remembered this...Titanus...laying waste to a city, killing thousands before she stopped it. How she knew she could not say, but the light of the Sword of the Creator pulsed, as if it agreed.

"Attack the golem!"

"You heard her. Attack!" A sea of wyverns and pegasi surged forward, the twin lights of Failnaught and LuÌn at their head. Sparks danced along the Titanus' metal skin, but it didn't stop, didn't even slow as its torso and arms rotated. Its sword lifted high and a flash of green light filled the air and a beam of energy cleaved the hoard of aerial cavalry in two. Men and beasts fell to earth like falling stars. Byleth fixed her gaze on the two lights. As long as Ingrid and Claude stayed in the battle, they had a chance.

_Is that so? Their weapons had not yet been forged the last time these machines saw battle. It was I who stopped them. You._

"I'm not. I'm not what you think I am."

Another blast as more riders fell. More screams, but not from soldiers. The blast sliced at the roof of a house. Stone crumbled, and liveried staff of some noble jumped from windows in a desperate, futile attempt at escape.

"Fliers Imperial Guard, break off." She was not a goddess, but she had to try something. "Lorenz, you and the knights with me."

Lorenz nodded. He no longer looked the part of the fashionable noble and he stank of horse, but the gleam in his eyes was the same. "With pleasure, professor." He stared at the crumbling building, the rage pouring from him palpable even to her. "Such carelessness towards human life should not be allowed to stand."

Most of the knights had long since discarded their horses, but the knights of Gloucester were unique in that they were as adept in magic as physical combat. The sign of the Crest of Gloucester shimmered around Lorenz. Streaks of flame and ice and lightning struck, and the Titanus groaned but did not falter. Byleth inhaled. Combat magic had never been her strong suit, but there was one card she could play. Healing magic restored the natural balance of the body, and could also repair ordinary and magical objects. But what could repair could also break. She could force the Titanus to tear itself apart. Perhaps.

"_Kavad!" _she shouted. It was an old word from a dead language, more knowledge that she shouldn't have possessed._ Die._ A sharp, stabbing pain lanced her chest were her heart must be. It was too much, this power, too much for a mere mortal like her. But cracks appeared in the unstoppable Titanus, just as they had appeared in the supposedly impregnable walls. White light poured through those cracks, and the Titanus shattered.

Metal rained from the heavens, sending soldiers from both sides running for cover. No. Oh no. She had defeated the enemy but unleashed something even worse. Shrapnel struck buildings like hailstones, leaving small holes to mark their passage. Helmets rendered useless. Unfortunate civilians slashed to ribbons. By her hand. And she was too weak to do anything but watch.

"Run!" Lorenz shouted and dragged her toward a side street and what passed for cover. Byleth followed him on heavy legs but her mind whirled. Her healing power had always seemed salvific, not just for her patients, but for her as she had worked to shed the demon. Was there nothing in her life not tinged with death?

"I need to go back," she said when she could speak again. "Help them."

"You need to withdraw before you collapse." Lorenz's voice softened the way it did when he was dealing with a recalcitrant colt. "You're no good to anyone in this state."

"I can't. Not when people are dying by my order. If anyone sees me withdraw, they'll think I've given up on them and we'll lose Fhirdiad." Byleth closed her eyes. It was more than that. She had left Edelgard beyond the walls. She might even now be dying without Byleth ever having told her how she felt. That alone would be a tragedy that would haunt her all her days, but the thought that it could all be for _nothing _was too much to bear. "I am not leaving this battle until either my head or my banner hang from the gates. I know I taught you enough healing magic to keep me going. Heal me."

"This is most foolish."

"Do it, Lorenz!"

He muttered something distinctly unbecoming of a noble, but his hands glowed with healing light and Byleth felt her strength return to her. Enough at least, to see Cornelia thrown down. "Thank you. Go, and see what you can do for the fallen."

"Of course, Professor." The grip on her wrist was iron and his voice was the harsh tone normally reserved for Claude. "You must not throw your life away. As much as it pains me to admit it, you are the only one that can hold this nascent land together. And if that isn't enough, I imagine that Lady Edelgard would be quite distressed if you died."

The thought that Edelgard might be upset if she died left Byleth with a curious tightness in her chest that she didn't know what to do with. "You don't even like her."

"Too true. If it were up to me, she would have been executed for her crimes long ago." He softened. "But it wasn't my decision and I am terribly fond of the light in your eyes when she's near. Now go, Professor, before sentiment overtakes me."

Byleth didn't know what to say, so she nodded and headed towards the palace. The Titanus' explosion had caused a lull in the battle as both sides saw to their wounded and recovered from the collapse of good order. The destruction was nothing compared to what the javelins of light had done to Fort Merceus but this part of the city would take weeks or months to rebuild. She walked faster.

Ingrid and Claude awaited her at the entrance. "We have a problem, my friend," Claude said. "Shamir broke into the palace—don't ask me how—and there are no troops stationed there."

"Then where's Cornelia?" All this carnage for an empty palace? It couldn't be.

"Oh, she's there. Her and a handful of mages. But the guards and servants are all gone. As if they would only get in the way. This is a very obvious trap."

"Just like Charon. And just like Charon, we have no choice but to spring the trap." She hoped that this one wouldn't lead to a similar chain of massacres. "Will you accompany me, my friends?"

Ingrid bowed, but Claude shook his head. "I'll have to pass, Teach. A place like this is bound to have secret passages and ambush points. Throne room included if—well, I think I can be more useful elsewhere."

He might hate being called the Master Tactician, but Claude was never without a scheme. It was why any of them were still alive, even if she didn't always know what the scheme could be. "Stay safe."

Ingrid watched him vanish into the darkness and turned for a last look at the carnage. "I thought I was prepared for this, but I suppose nothing can prepare you for seeing such carnage. I will have Cornelia's head for Dimitri, Rodrigue, and all who suffered for her cruelty."

The throne room in Fhirdiad was darker and more cramped than the one in Enbarr, with arrow slits and torches instead of stained-glass windows. A viewing gallery ringed the upper level, and a golden throne with lions at its head and arms dominated the lower. Two shapes lay on the carpet in front of the throne. Bodies. One a man in full plate, his silver-blue hair mussed and the other with flowing locks that gleamed in the firelight.

"No!" Byleth sprinted across the room, heedless of the danger and Ingrid's warnings. She turned the bodies over. They were Caspar and Ferdinand, their bodies slashed by dozens of sword strokes and left for hours. Tears trickled down her face. She had lost people before—her father, Catherine, Cyril—but these were her own precious students who she had sworn to protect. She should never had let them take such a dangerous assignment. She should have had them by her side like a good teacher would. And they had been like this for hours, beyond the reach of her time powers. She had failed. Again. Edelgard must—

Edelgard. A fresh stream of tears threatened. She didn't know exactly how they had died, but she knew that Edelgard had thrown herself into the worst of the danger ever since they had crossed the border into Faerghus. As much as Byleth had told herself that she had accepted the possibility of losing those she loved, she had always naïvely hoped for the fairytale ending where her beloved students would all crowd around her once the war was done and they had the carefree reunion they should have had a year ago. As desire had been joined by trust, her mind had added Edelgard as well. Cornelia destroyed that dream. Something within Byleth cracked.

"Are you enjoying my little gift?" Cornelia's voice rang through the hall. "I hope they died like rats. A fitting end for your kind, as you will soon discover. You really should have paid more attention to your surroundings."

Byleth looked up, but there was no sign of Cornelia. A roar filled throne room and where there had been shadows on the moments before, there was now the Stone Beast that had once been Rodrigue. It simply stood there, not attacking.

"What are you waiting for? Attack!"

"It remembers," Ingrid said in wonder. "The Wandering Beast retained control over his mind, and so have you." Ingrid lowered her lance and took a step forward. "You remember me, how much I loved Glenn and you. You used to sneak me books of chivalry even when my own father objected. Let me help you now."

"Ing..."

Byleth couldn't breathe, only watch as maiden and monster who should have been father and daughter looked at one another. There had been so much death today. Let there be one moment of grace.

But then Rodrigue seized Ingrid with his claws and threw her against the wall. She landed with a crack and crumpled on the floor, lifeless. The cracks within Byleth grew deeper until she broke apart entirely. Byleth was too weak to protect anyone that mattered. But the Ashen Demon was another matter entirely.

The Sword of the Creator glowed once more. She sprang away to create distance between her and Rodrigue. She whipped the blade in an arc. Tendrils curled around Rodrigue's limbs. He strained at his bonds, but the sword held him fast. Bits of stone flesh broke away as she dug the edges deeper into his skin with cold, methodical precision. He roared again, but not in anger or preparation to attack. Screaming. Begging. She didn't listen. This time she would make sure nothing rose to hit her students. She lashed it. Again. Again.

It convulsed. Black ooze strouted over the stone and revealed battered flesh in the cracks. More and more ooze poured out as the Beast shrunk to the size of a man. And still she did not stop. Not even when the cries lost their inhuman tenor.

"Professor...stop."

Byleth blinked. Ingrid? She blinked again and blanched as she saw what was left of Rodrigue. What the Ashen Demon had done. She sprang away towards the other crumpled heap. Ingrid was not dead, not yet. She stirred feebly and the barest hint of light flickered in her eyes. "Wish...could...save..."

No. Something else stirred within Byleth. She had been gifted the powers of a progenitor god, a life-giving god. She would not let the demons of destruction within and without have the last word. Her hands glowed with white light. She couldn't do anything about Ferdinand, Caspar or Edelgard, but she could save one life. The stabbing pain in her chest returned until she thought that whatever she had for a heart might crack in two. The life poured from her in an endless stream and one by one the injuries that covered Ingrid's body closed up and mangled limbs straightened.

Ingrid looked at her again, her gaze now focused and alert. "Stop. You'll fall over."

Byleth collapsed as if on cue, tumbling on top of Ingrid, and listened to their ragged breaths. All the energy left her body. The Ashen Demon and progenitor god had both vanished, leaving only Byleth surrounded by the dead and the one life she had managed to save. "Shh," she told Ingrid as if she were her child. "Everything will be all right now."

"That's premature, don't you think?"

Byleth rolled over and tried to sit, but her body failed her. Cornelia's laugh was cruel. "So even Fell Star has her limits. You really shouldn't have spent the last of your energy healing an insignificant nobody, but you always did have skewed priorities. You are more like the vermin than a goddess." Her footsteps sounded a short distance away. This was no magic. She had come in person to finish off her enemy.

"You are the vermin!" Ingrid's voice had more strength, but her grip on LuÌn was weak and she too remained on the floor. "Even if we fall here, our allies will end your reign today."

"I don't think so. Most of your allies are so weak and cowardly that Thales didn't think it was worth assigning an infiltrator. The boy from Almyra will be far too busy trying and failing to keep others from hoarding scraps of power without you around." Cornelia moved into view. "Watching all his dreams crumble will be amusing."

A flash of movement at the edge of Byleth's vision caught her attention. The boy from Almyra moved silent and unseen through the spectators' gallery. He nodded once and raised Failnaught. Byleth understood. She only had to keep Cornelia talking until Claude could line up a shot and this long war would at last be over.

"And then what?" She fixed Cornelia with her best defiant glare. "This scheme of yours has been going on at least since Duscur. Your can't have poured all those resources into Duscur and the Insurrection just for amusement."

"Of course not. Long ago, we ruled this world before you forced us underground. We gave the Adrestians their 'perfect Emperor' and threw the Kingdom into chaos. In exchange, she was to pave the way for us. She imagined she could destroy us first. Arrogant that one, so arrogant that we all thought she would rather die than yield. But in the end, all humans are the same." Cornelia knelt over her and grinned, her teeth like fangs. "It was she who gave up the other two, delivered them right to my men in exchange for power enough to take back her crown. Just as she delivered up your father to Kronya."

Her voice was sweet, and as if her words weren't poison. What she didn't know was that Byleth had received the antidote. She had held Edelgard as she confessed her crimes and vowed to do better. The Flame Emperor was dead. And never once had she blamed herself for Jeralt's death. For Cornelia to tell this lie instead of gloating over Edelgard's death could only mean one thing: Edelgard was still alive.

She found the strength to raise her head. Claude smiled and nodded to her. "Funny story. Shame that you don't know how it ends."

The arrow struck before Cornelia could even turn around. She went rigid and had time for only the briefest flicker of surprise before she fell next to Byleth. Byleth's gaze traveled from her to Ingrid to Caspar and Ferdinand to Rodrigue before finally landing on Claude. So many dead but so many living. And it was finally over.

She was aware of soldiers rushing into the palace. What they must think to see their Enlightened One like this? It was Claude who reached her first and held her in a sitting position so she could see the sea of silver and red who cheered and shouted her name, those who didn't know how close she had come to losing herself to the Demon once and for all. They knelt.

"My friends! You deserve to cheer. Fódlan is at last one nation, and this woman who has fought and sacrificed for your freedom will be your queen! Do you accept her?"

"I do," said Ingrid.

Other voices raised in a chorus of agreement until they were all chanting. "Long live the queen! Long live the queen!" Then as quickly as they had begun, the voices fell silent. A lone figure staggered down the hall as the crowd parted before her. Her hair was matted and her armor covered in blood, but she was alive. She clutched at Byleth's jerkin to brace herself and knelt. Yet more tears coursed down Byleth's face and she didn't even know why she was crying. People weren't supposed to cry at happy things.

"Long live the queen," Edelgard said, her own eyes bright with the glimmer of unshed tears even as she smiled. "I'm so happy you're safe."

* * *

Byleth considered herself an excellent physician. Not as good as Manuela, but even without healing magic she was good at both diagnosis and the critical yet unheralded task of getting the most powerful people in Fódlan to rest and take their medicine. Even if she had to threaten to tell Seteth who had been testing poisons the day before the Battle of the Eagle and Lion.

Being the patient was worse.

"I should be out there." Byleth paced the length of the small bedroom where she was being forced to convalesce. She could look through the window to the courtyard beyond. The casualties of the last battle, both military and civilian, were so great that they had set up medical tents even there. Everyone with even the slightest knowledge of healing magic had been put on duty triaging and tending to the wounded. Most of the rest of her forces were divided between helping clean up the damage and patrolling the city to prevent pillaging. A small cadre discreetly searched for any evidence that could lead to the Agarthan home base. Everyone had their role to play. All except the titular queen.

"You won't do any good if you collapse," Marianne said softly, placatingly. "Driving yourself to exhaustion a second time won't do anything to bring back the dead."

Byleth looked at her. She loved all her students but had always felt especially protective of Marianne. To see her with her head up and no dark circles under her eyes filled Byleth with a warmth that not even the Ashen Demon could quench.

"I still need something to do. Paperwork. Oh, Sothis, the paperwork! There's probably a lot of things I need to sign and I should probably pick a Prime Minister now that Ferdinand is—" Her breath stopped. Ferdinand and Caspar's deaths still felt unreal. Some part of her expected them to walk through the door, complaining about missing the battle. It was a gut punch every time she suddenly remembered the truth. "We should have memorials for the people that died."

"I think that would be comforting for everyone. I didn't know Caspar that well, but Ferdinand was terribly eager and terribly kind. He said everyone had a purpose in life. Even me at my worst."

"That sounds like him. You can't object to me planning a memorial service. I can do most of the work from my bed. There's probably some pronouncements I should be drafting."

"Professor..."

"Sorry, I'm just not the sitting around type." She tried to smile. "Is there anything that needs doing? I promise that I won't use magic."

Marianne shifted awkwardly. "Well, Lorenz did mention something about meeting with some Kingdom nobles."

"Perfect!"

It felt less like a good idea when she returned to the throne room. It had been cleaned, but she could still see blood and ooze where she had slaughtered Rodrigue. Lorenz had found an unadorned chair to sit at the foot of the throne in front of two men in furs. The younger of the two was pale and sickly looking and not at all familiar to her. She had never met the older man either, but she knew that shock of red hair. Margrave Gautier had come. "May I assist?"

Lorenz rose and bowed. The sickly man did as well, but Gautier merely nodded. "Your Imperial Majesty. Thank you for liberating Faerghus from the occupation your predecessor imposed on her. I only wish my son had lived to see this day."

Byleth was suddenly glad of her lack of expression. It meant that no one noticed her wincing internally. "Gronder was a tragedy for all concerned."

"I don't blame you for his death. I think I speak for him in being very grateful that you managed to save Lady Ingrid's life. But that doesn't change the fact that there are matters that we must discuss."

The sickly man finally raised his eyes. His voice was raspy. "You shouldn't speak that way to your queen."

"And you shouldn't speak at all, you traitorous dog!"

"Lorenz?"

"My apologies, Your Majesty." The glare he sent Gautier would have sent a weaker man running. "Allow me to formally introduce Margrave Henri Esteban Gautier and Count Philip Georg Rowe. Who are both in their own way extremely concerned for the future of Faerghus."

Rowe. She remembered that name. "You were Ashe's liege. You sent troops against us in the Valley of Torment."

"I defended Faerghus against a threat at the behest of the woman who saved my life." He straightened a bit. "You would have only been a baby when the plague hit. You didn't see the burned bodies, the countless murdered 'just in case' they were ill. Cornelia stopped it all. She told me to serve the Empire. I would have worshiped the Fell King Nemesis had she asked it."

Gautier rounded on him and reached for his throat before he thought better of it and let his arm fall to the side. "You betrayed our king! You stood by as she committed atrocity upon atrocity."

"I betrayed a mad boy who also committed his fair share of atrocities, if the stories I hear of the Boar Prince are true." Despite his words, Rowe's shoulders were slumped and he didn't meet her eyes. "I heard stories, but what reason had I to believe them?"

Byleth's lips flattened into a thin line. She believed Rowe as far as that went, but the woman who had worn Cornelia face had spent months slaughtering half of Faerghus. At some point, Rowe should have noticed that the woman who saved him no longer existed. And yet, who was the Ashen Demon who had not only spared the notorious Flame Emperor, but let her lead troops, to judge? She felt suddenly very small. Powers are no, she was a mercenary who had been entirely ignorant of politics before becoming a professor. She had a sudden urge to throw her crown at Lorenz and tell him he could have the thing.

"What precisely do your lordships want with me?" she said instead.

"Merely to pledge my fealty to my new emperor and queen."

"He means to lick your boots so that you won't give him the traitor's death he so richly deserves." Gautier's eyes wore the same brown as his children, but they had a cold imperiousness Sylvain and Miklan had never managed. "So willing to trade one master for another. I acknowledge that the conqueror named you her heir, and I'm profoundly grateful for your assistance, but that doesn't make you Queen of Faerghus. I didn't wage war against one Emperor of Adrestia merely to be conquered by another. "

Never mind. No one deserved this impending mess. Claude had been so enthusiastic about uniting Fódlan and ending the injustice faced by people from foreign lands and that enthusiasm had been infectious. They had only to put an end to the war and a grateful Fódlan would welcome them as liberators. She had never asked what they were supposed to do if the people didn't particularly want to be united. "I wish to help Faerghus rebuild. We didn't have peace before the war, only a lack of open fighting between nations. Bandits around every corner. Murdering an entire people for the actions of a few. Cornelia wasn't responsible for those things. I wish to seek a world where our differences can be solved by negotiation instead."

"Than you are worse than a conqueror. You are a fool. Faerghus was forged from cold steel. We want nothing to do with the soft words of the south. Especially not a false mercy that would let monsters run free." He drew himself to his full height and the power of his Crest danced along his skin. "If you wish to be my queen, then give me the head of that traitor there. Give me the head of the heretical Edelgard who murdered my king and destroyed my country."

Rowe whimpered, but Byleth scarcely heard him. Nothing mattered except that ridiculous demand. She tamped down the rage coursing through her blood. Barely. "It isn't Edelgard who claims the crown. You should be satisfied."

"Not while she yet lives."

So that was it then. Edelgard or a united Fódlan. Byleth had told herself countless times that she could execute Edelgard if she needed to. And she could have, she thought, if Edelgard had remained merely an infatuation she didn't truly know, if she had ever raised her blade in rebellion since that day in Enbarr. But to kill the woman that she knew, that she loved? She couldn't do that even for a golden age that would last another thousand years. "I'm sorry, Margrave, but I cannot grant your request."

A heavy silence descended on the throne room, the only sound that of Rowe's uneven breathing. Byleth waited for Gautier to strike her or some other declaration of independence. She waited, too, for some frisson of guilt for sacrificing Claude's ambition. Neither came.

Lorenz stood. "You are of course free to declare independence. I believe I speak for both Her Majesty and Duke Riegan in saying that we will not force anyone to join us. However, you would be responsible for the deaths of most of your peasants."

"Is that a threat?"

"Nothing of the kind, I assure you." He wore the small, smug smile that had gotten him punched on more than one occasion. "But the freedom of independence does come with certain drawbacks. I have some idea of the agricultural disaster about to befall the Kingdom and your lands were never very rich to begin with. Harvests in Gloucester _were_ very rich. I would be honor-bound to help countrymen, but trade with a foreign power is entirely different. You would find the duties levied quite onerous."

Gautier faltered for the first time. "So, I'm supposed to forget all her crimes? I demand satisfaction!"

"Well, you could challenge Lady Edelgard to a duel. You might even win with the Lance of Ruin, though I doubt it." His voice dropped so that Byleth had to strain to hear him. "But Gautier would find itself alone against both Sreng and the long winter to come. Would you really let those you were charged to protect die for satisfaction?"

The two lords stared at each other and it seemed that the entire palace held its breath. Or perhaps it was only Byleth. Gautier looked away at last. "Damn you, Gloucester. Damn you." He nodded to Byleth once more. "I assume you will be reinstating the festival of the founding of Garreg Mach. I'll come and we will see what can be done."

Byleth blinked and she thought for a moment that she would faint again. "That sounds good."

Gautier hmphed and turned on his heel, leaving only Rowe. "Er, what about me?"

What about him indeed? Byleth could hardly have him executed when both she and Edelgard had done so much worse. But he had come to her only to save his own life and there were no deeds of derring-do that could justify clemency. "You fought for Edelgard, so you will share her fate. I depose you. From this day forward, your lands and titles will be given to Ashe, Lord Gaspard. Any income you receive from him is at his discretion. I hope for your sake that you were a merciful liege."

The look on Rowe's face suggested he knew that he hadn't been. His knees knocked together but he managed to bow before staggering from the room.

Byleth collapsed onto the throne less because she was the queen or emperor or whatever she was and more because it was the nearest available chair. "That was close. Thank you for all your help. I didn't know that you were such a good politician."

He sniffed. "I thought we had known each other long enough that you had discovered that I'm magnificent at anything I put my mind to. And a noble, a true noble, does everything he can to mediate disputes and support a just ruler."

"Well, thank you again." She ran her hands through hair that was in sore need of a wash after so long. "He was ready to rebel because I didn't kill Edelgard. What would killing her even solve? She saved my neck a hundred times. Killing her would be, well it would be dishonorable."

"And you love her."

"And I love her. I don't even know if she feels the same way about me, but I'm willing to cause an international incident for her. Does that make me a bad queen?"

"Not a bad one. An unwise one, perhaps. It is the duty of councilors to help." He softened, his expression somewhere between tender and pitying. "But you are queen and as much as I want you to be happy, there will be times you have to sacrifice for the good of the realm. Edelgard can never be more than an open secret of a mistress. Can you deal with that kind of political reality?"

"I don't know." And she didn't. She didn't know anything about romance or politics, let alone how the two combined. "It's a bit premature to think about that when I don't even know how she feels."

"Then I suggest you ask her." This smile was warmer and not at all smug. "Then we can discuss what to do about Gautier."

"Sounds like I missed some serious politicking." Claude darted forward, his smile pasted on but a tremor in his hands. "Lysithea and I have been poking around anything Cornelia might have been using as a hidey-hole and today I found this." He produced a piece of parchment from his pocket, but it was like no parchment Byleth had ever seen. It was a bright white, and the ink on it looked strange, and the writing was far too even to have been produced by a human hand. Most of the characters looked like gibberish, but there were a series of numbers at the bottom. "45.23" she read. "Hubert left us numbers like that. But what do they mean?" They had gone to all this trouble and gotten only more riddles. It was enough to make her head pound. "A cipher?"

"Why use a cipher if you already have a writing system no one else does? Lysithea thought it might be something simpler. Map coordinates. And now we have two sets of numbers."

Byleth stared at him. "That's good?"

"Yes! It's the first set of numbers are Merceus and the second set are Fhirdiad...well it's only logical that 0.0 would be the Agarthan base, given how humble they are."

"That is a very large series of assumptions." Lorenz said.

"It would be…if it didn't also lead to a patch of Goneril territory that's supposed to be haunted. Everyone who enters it disappears."

"It's definitely worth sending Shamir to investigate." Her own hands trembled. This war that has gone on for a thousand years might finally end. She couldn't bring Caspar and Ferdinand back, but at least their deaths would matter. The survivors could live freely. Rhea. Seteth. Flayn. And her and Edelgard. "For now, we bury our dead. And I find the courage to speak to a lady."


	15. El

Edelgard had heard of funerals where wine flowed as freely as tears, but this may have been the first time water was the drink most in demand. Byleth had given a lovely speech memorializing everyone who had given their lives in the battle in general and Caspar and Ferdinand in particular. The bodies were even now on their way back to Adrestia for a proper burial. It had been as solemn as it should. Now, the common soldier wanted to celebrate living.

Edelgard stood in the darkest corner of the abandoned mansion that served as a command post and barracks, wishing desperately for her cloak and hood to hide her hair. She watched as soldiers sang bawdy songs and passed around mugs of fresh water. One dumped it over his head and his friends laughed, so glad were they all to be off rationing. To have won.

It still felt unreal.

"You don't have to stand here by yourself, you know."

Edelgard turned to see Lysithea glaring at her with her arms crossed and Ashe standing sheepishly at her side. "What she means is may we join you?"

Edelgard's face warmed. Having friends and from among her former enemies also felt unreal, but she wasn't inclined to question her good fortune. Instead she moved so they could huddle together, the three of them in their own private world, away from the glares of those who wished her dead.

"We won! Edelgard, we won!" Lysithea didn't raise her voice, but she took Edelgard's hands and squeezed them. "Cornelia's dead and those rats don't rule anything besides their hole in the ground. Soon they won't have that."

Ashe's eyes went wide, though he was careful to keep his voice down. "You found them?"

"I can't say anything yet."

Which meant they had. Edelgard's legs wobbled and she leaned against the wall to stay upright. Claude had the location of the Agarthans. The nightmares she had lived for half her life would soon be over. No one would suffer as she and Lysithea had and Edelgard's silent oath would be fulfilled. Her siblings would not have died in vain. "It'll be over. We'll be free."

"For whatever time we have." A shadow passed over Lysithea's face. "I only wanted to make the world safe for my parents and let my brothers and sisters and rest in peace. I don't know how to spend a year or two of peace."

"Start by refusing to believe that it will only be a year or two. You aren't dead yet." Edelgard allowed herself a small smile. "You told me once that I wasn't allowed to die yet. Well, neither are you. Promise me that you won't give up. "

"I—I won't. I promised the professor the same thing after Gronder. But still, to have a life of my own after so long...what are you going to do now, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I don't know." Even as emperor she had had a half formed idea that her heart would give out the moment Fódlan was stable enough to hand to her successor. She still expected to meet some fitting end defeating Agartha. The tyrant who had shed so much blood wasn't allowed to spend the rest of her life gorging on sweets.

Ashe cleared his throat. "You could come with me. Both of you. The professor took me aside before the funeral. I'm being made Count Rowe. I'll need all the help I can get."

"You'll be master of Arianrhod?" The Silver Maiden's walls had never been breached, and the city it protected was the second largest in the Kingdom and more beautiful than any city besides Enbarr. With Rodrigue and his family dead, Ashe would be the second-most powerful noble in the former Kingdom and one of the most powerful in a united Fódlan. "Quite the accomplishment. I told you that you would rise high."

"But I don't know anything about being a count. I don't even know how to run Gaspard. All I ever wanted was to be a knight and to...to look after the cat Caspar and I found." His breath hitched and he looked suddenly terribly young and vulnerable. "All I want is him and everyone else in the Blue Lions and Lonato and Cristophe back."

Edelgard still didn't know how to handle those who insisted on grieving by wishing for what they couldn't have. "That will never happen. Honor their memory and try to do what would make them proud."

He exhaled. "Lonato wouldn't want me to abandon the people. And someone has to make sure Mr. Furry is fed. I guess that makes me a aount. So will you come? Rowe has always had a court mage and you ran a whole country. I can't think of anyone better to be my steward."

"Someone who your peasants won't want to hang from the nearest tree, for a start." There was a part of her that wanted to say yes. She wanted a second chance to put all her training to good use after she had squandered it in her desperation. it would be a quiet post, far from bloodshed. Among those who wanted her around. "You know what I did and you would still have me? Either of you?"

Lysithea made a derisive noise in the back of her throat. "Of course we would. You're our friend."

Friends. Like Casper and Ferdinand. Like Bernadetta and Dorothea. Except that they hadn't had to die for her to figure out what they were to her. "Would you do me an honor then? Call me El. It's what my family and dearest friends called me when I was younger."

"You're sure?"

"I can think of only one other person I'd want to call me that."

"Okay Edel—El!" Ashe flushed crimson down to his neck. "That'll take some getting used to, but I'm sure I'll have it straight by the time we leave for Arianrhod. "

"I haven't agreed yet." There was a part of her that wanted to, true, but a part of her that resisted. Arianrhod was a week's ride from the monastery, worse when the weather was bad. Edelgard didn't want to be so far away from Byleth. Maybe she should be kinder to those who wanted what they couldn't have. "Give me time. And think about finding someone to serve you who won't damage your reputation."

"There you are!"

Hilda stumbled towards them. Her cheeks were flushed and she smelled of drink. Of course someone would still want the alcohol and of course it would be her. She gestured wildly before settling for clapping Edelgard on the shoulder. "The professor nearly threw Faerghus away over you. The least you can do is join the party."

"Pardon?"

"Well, you're just standing here sulking."

"Not that." Edelgard resisted tapping her foot and was reminded why she had never liked Hilda in school. "The part about Her Majesty nearly throwing Faerghus away."

"Oh that? Well, one of the guards heard her and Margrave Gautier yelling at each other. He said that she could only be his queen if she executed you. She said she wouldn't and got really angry about it."

"Oh." And once again Byleth took a foolish risk to save her life. It didn't mean anything, no matter how much her traitorous heart pounded. This time she had been willing to jeopardize the unification that they all had dreamed of for so long. "Someone should tell her that one life doesn't matter when the continent is at stake. Especially my life."

"I'm not surprised. She was always rushing into battle to save us. I got exhausted just watching her. And for you? Can I tell you a secret? You have to promise not to tell anybody."

Edelgard nodded. The girl was so drunk she would probably tell her that Byleth was actually a pink elephant.

Hilda leaned in and dropped her voice to an exaggerated whisper. "She's been in love with you for years."

Edelgard braced herself against the wall. She could not have heard that correctly. Or it was some kind of twisted joke. She looked at Ashe and Lysithea, and her legs threatened to give out entirely. They didn't have the faces of people hearing a joke. They looked like people hearing something that they had always known.

"From the first moment that she saw you, she said," Hilda said as if she wasn't turning Edelgard's world upside down. "You should have seen her at the ball. We all took bets on whether she would work up the nerve to ask you to dance. I lost a lot of money!"

Edelgard worked her jaw. She wanted to scream at them all that Byleth couldn't be so stupid as to fall in love with someone like her, but her voice wasn't working. Her memory was. Byleth looking sad and almost tender before she offered Edelgard her hand. Byleth nearly drawing her sword against Rhea. Byleth giving her chance after chance and trusting her with her own horrific past. Things that had seemed inexplicable from a pragmatic point of view. But now…

Oh. Oh. _Oh._

"What's going on here?" Byleth's voice cut through the air.

They all froze, even Hilda. Edelgard wasn't sure if she wanted to run towards Byleth or disappear through the floor. The emperor-now-queen walked to them, subtle confusion on her face. "Am I interrupting something? You all look like the cat who got the canary."

"Er, no. No canaries here." Ashe ran a finger around his collar. "I've never even seen one."

"All right then." Byleth shifted uncomfortably. "Edelgard? I was wondering if I could have a word in private."

In private? She looked from Byleth to Hilda and back again._ She's been in love with you for years._ Edelgard swallowed. All the sieges, all the battles she had survived seemed infinitely less terrifying than this moment. "If you like." What else could she say?

"Sure." Hilda grinned at them both. "We'll just make sure that nobody bothers you and you can have your little rendezvous. Come on, it looks like we've got guard duty."

"What is going on with them?" Byleth asked and then shook her head. "Never mind. I'll get it out of Lysithea later. Do you mind following me? This really isn't the place for what I need to say."

Edelgard nodded mutely. Byleth took her by the hand. Heads turned but Edelgard could only focus on the hammering of her heart and the warmth of Byleth's skin. They went down hallways and up flights of stairs, never speaking. Edelgard tried to contain the malestorm of emotions fighting for dominance within. Byleth in love with her. Still. Now. Just as her own feelings had never quite faded. Her cheeks burned. She wished she had known sooner before she had done so much she couldn't take back. She wished Byleth had chosen the Black Eagles. She wished that she had been brave enough to ask Byleth for a dance or to throw herself at her feet after Jeralt's death. And she wished she had some idea what to do with the revelation now.

Byleth forced open a trapdoor and led Edelgard onto the roof. Cold wind brushed her cheeks and played across loose strands of hair. The previous owners had installed a rooftop garden, and there were a few dead or dying flowers still visible, but the thing that made Edelgard's breath catch in her throat was the view. Thousands upon thousands of stars shined over the dark streets of the city and silvered Byleth's skin as she walked towards the open space in the center. She looked older, wistful, like a painting of a goddess. Not the tripe that the church commissioned, but something older and more powerful, tinged with loss.

The silence stretched on. "It was a fine eulogy," Edelgard said because it was true and because it was safe.

Byleth bowed her head. "I lost them. They were my students and my responsibility, and I lost them."

"Blame Cornelia. Blame me if you must. They died protecting me."

"Ah, Edelgard. I could never blame you for anything." She raised her head and turned to her. "I thought I had lost you too, and it almost broke me. There are things I have to tell you, things I should have told to long before now."

Her voice was so raw, so very earnest, the perfect knight pledging herself to her ladylove. "Don't," Edelgard whispered. "Don't say you're in love with me. A queen can't love a monster."

"But I do. And I'm a monster too." Her footsteps sounded on the stones. She put two fingers under Edelgard's chin and lifted her head to meet her gaze. Those brilliant green eyes were soft, pleading, as if it was Edelgard who had the power to break her. "I thought I fell in love with you when you came barreling out of the woods, but now the truth is that I think I fell in love with you bit by bit from that day in Enbarr. I love you, Edelgard von Hresvelg, exactly as you are now. And, Goddess, please say something."

"But I, the people would never accept it."

"I'm not asking them. If you don't feel the same way, tell me and I'll never mention it again. But if you're only afraid…" Her hands trailed down Edelgard's arms to lace their fingers together. "I want something just for me in all this suffering. You. And there's nothing I won't face if it means I can keep you."

She ought to lie. Byleth deserved someone sweeter and with no sharp edges or complications. Even as emperor, Edelgard couldn't have offered her that. It would be selfish, so unaccountably selfish, to put her desires first. But the words stuck in her throat and instead she threw herself at Byleth. Strong arms came around her and held her close as Edelgard shuddered with silent cries.

"Shh. Shhh. I'll keep you safe," Byleth murmured as she stroked Edelgard's hair. "You don't know how long I've wanted to hold you like this."

"I like it." Edelgard burrowed closer. Maybe this was all a fever dream and she would wake to find the real Byleth had killed her. But... "If this is a dream, I hope that I never wake."

"Me neither. But it's real. I'll show you." She eased back and brought Edelgard's head up once more. Her lips brushed against her. It was almost painfully chaste, and her lips were cracked and cold. Byleth didn't seem to know what to do with her hands, moving them almost desperately from her cheeks to her arms to her back. Still Edelgard trembled.

Byleth pulled back, flushing in the moonlight. "Was it all right? I've never kissed anyone before. "

"It was fine, my darling. More than fine." She braced herself against Byleth's shoulders and stood on tiptoe to kiss her herself. She was keenly aware of her own relative inexperience and the overpowering need to make this good for Byleth. She slid her mouth gently over hers, taking the time learning the outline of her mouth. Byleth gasped and let her in. Edelgard pushed down the surge of wildness that threatened to spiral through her. She would not rush this. They had dreamed of this for years. She could afford to luxuriate.

She wasn't sure how long they spent like that just kissing, pausing for breath only to begin again. But at last, they were sated for the moment. Byleth's hair was a mess and her lips were slightly swollen. It was a sight Edelgard would treasure until the day she died. She pillowed her head on Byleth's shoulder and enjoyed her stroking everything that she could reach. "You're so warm."

"A goddess, an Emperor, a queen. Now I'm a heater. I must be multitalented."

Edelgard stiffened. She had almost forgotten why she had resisted. This was a beautiful idyll, but the real world with all its politics awaited below. "This won't be easy. Even the people who don't care that you're in love with the Flame Emperor would happily use it against you."

"Then we'll be discreet. If that's what you want. I can blame you if you'd rather have someone who can acknowledge you."

Edelgard laughed despite herself. If there was one thing she was prepared for, it was life where love had to be subordinate to the state. She had spent her life as Imperial Princess and Emperor knowing that her marriage would be as cold and loveless as her father's to his empress. Being the mistress, following in her parents footsteps, didn't sound so bad. "I can bear it if you can. But could you do one thing for me?"

"Anything."

"Call me El."

"El," Byleth whispered as if her name were a prayer. She peppered Edelgard's face with kisses until she was left gasping and desperate. "El. El. El. My El. My love."


	16. Winning the Peace

Garreg Mach appeared over the horizon and Byleth slowed her horse to a walk. After three long months, they were home. She spared a glanced behind. The army was bedraggled and far smaller than the one that had last marched through the monastery gates, but they were smiling and whistling. Faerghus was free. There was so much work to be done keeping the hard-won peace, but it would be the work of diplomats and bureaucrats, not soldiers. She had lost so much, but she and Fódlan had gained far more.

Edelgard brought her horse alongside. Speaking of things she had gained... Edelgard's posture was easy in the saddle and she looked healthier and better rested. Her hair was loose, spilling almost down her back even as the breeze played with it. The most beautiful woman in the world, fit for one of Ignatz's paintings. She saw Byleth looking at her and a delicate blush and small smile crept over her face.

"Home at last, Your Majesty." Her voice caressed the title and her eyes glittered with the amusement of a woman getting something over on the rest of the world. "Would you like me to help you stable your horse?"

"I can do—" The words died in her throat as Edelgard quirked her brow. Stable the horses. Be alone with Edelgard away from prying eyes. "On second thought, I could use the help."

They rode together in warm silence until the third floor balcony came into view. Rhea stood there, watching, just as she had during Byleth's first visit to the monastery all those years ago. She didn't wear her regalia, and what Byleth could make out of her face from this distance suggested the same gaunt features and wan complexion as when they had left. Strange. She had suffered greatly in captivity, but it had been almost half a year since they had liberated her. She should have recovered more by now.

Edelgard followed her gaze and frowned. "No doubt the Archbishop will be delighted to hear of your victory."

"Be nice. I know you hate her, but you both want Agartha finished. I'd like to concentrate on this summit, not keeping you from killing each other. And she's the nearest thing I've ever had to a mother."

Edelgard sighed. "I'll try to do a better job of controlling my temper." Her voice dropped to a whisper so that only Byleth could hear. "For you."

The rode through the courtyard, which was soon alive with bustle as the garrison, servants, and civilians left behind rushed out to greet their returning comrades. Shouts of "Long live the queen!" rang in the air—letters detailing the retaking of Fhirdiad had beaten them home by days or weeks. Reuniting lovers embraced and spun each other around. People who she knew only by sight rushed to kiss the hem of her cloak and even Edelgard's glare and her own embarrassed protestations couldn't stop them.

"Okay, okay." Claude pushed his way through the crowd, clearing a path for her. "Her Majesty needs to put up her horse and rest. There'll be a grand banquet in the dining hall this evening to celebrate, but until then I trust you can celebrate privately with the people you love." His gaze met Byleth and he winked at her, which just made her blush again.

"He knows," Edelgard said when they were at last alone in the part of the stables set aside for royal and imperial use. "I don't know how Claude knows, but he knows."

"I just assume Claude knows everything. It saves time. And well, I was rather obvious about my feelings for you." She ran her hands down Edelgard's arms, enjoying tracing the line of her muscles even through her clothing. She was so warm, so real, despite the fact that Byleth kept expecting her to vanish into the ether at any moment. "I have you now. That's all that matters."

"You are an incorrigible sentimentalist, my darling," Edelgard said, but smiling as she did so. She kissed Byleth. Kissing was another thing that didn't feel quite real. Not just that her long-held romantic fantasies were being realized, but the sudden heat in her chest and the way her breathing went ragged. She had spent most of her life barely feeling anything but now she was feeling everything all at once. A woman in love instead of a demon.

"I have something for you," she said when they pulled back. She reached into her cloak and pulled out an iron key. "I was given a copy of the key to your room when you first came here. I should have given it to you before now, but here you are. You can come and go as you please." Edelgard stared at it, but she didn't say anything and her expression was unreadable. Byleth winced. "I knew I should've gotten you a real present. Flowers. People like to get flowers as gifts."

"No. No. It's wonderful." She tucked the key into her pocket and wrapped her arms around Byleth. "I'm not a prisoner anymore."

"You haven't been for a long time." Byleth eased back so they could look at each other. "I don't want you to feel forced into anything. You need a space that's yours."

"Thank you." She kissed Byleth again. "This is—"

"Professor, the Archbishop was—oh!"

Byleth and Edelgard sprang apart and Byleth rounded to find Ingrid staring at them red-faced. She was still heavily bandaged and would limp for the rest of her days, but she would live. Byleth wasn't so sure of her own prospects at the moment. "Um, hi," she squeaked. "Did you want something?" Oh, she wasn't very good at this secret relationship business. And Ingrid had every reason in the world to despise Edelgard. Byleth could only stand and wait for the axe to fall.

Ingrid blinked and schooled her face into a mask of courtesy. "The Archbishop wanted to speak with you."

Byleth nodded, face still aflame. "I'll go see her. Um, keep yourself safe, Edelgard. You might want to keep locking your door and having a bodyguard. I know you can take care of yourself but..." Goddess, being in love made her an inarticulate idiot.

"I'll keep watch over Edelgard," Ingrid said with surprising solemnity. "I owe you for saving my life and even crippled knights need something to do."

"You are not a cripple and I won't hear such language."She put a hand on Ingrid's shoulder. "It took me five years to recover. You can give yourself five weeks."

"Yes, Professor," Ingrid said, eyes downcast.

Byleth smoothed her clothing and hair and walked into the monastery and towards the third floor. More people stopped to thank her, some falling prostrate as if she were the Goddess instead of a queen and no one paid her any mind when she tried to remind them that this had been a team effort. A trip that normally took ten minutes at the most took up the next half hour. How had Edelgard and Dimitri ever stood for such fawning?

Rhea's quarters were still spartan, but at least someone had managed to clean the place on a regular basis since the last time Byleth had come. Rhea herself had moved her chair to the balcony and was watching the reunions still going on below. Byleth moved silently to stand beside her. It was as she had thought. Rhea was nearly as pale and thin as the day they had brought her out of Enbarr. And without her regalia, she seemed almost painfully frail, with none of the authority and serenity that had first drawn Byleth to her.

"You sent for me?'

That snapped Rhea out of her reverie. She turned in her seat and her eyes widened as a smile spread across her face. "You're home." She rose unsteadily and put her arms around Byleth. She was so...fragile. "Oh, my dear child. I prayed every day for your safe return. Is it over."

"For now." Byleth said. She released her and knelt before the chair, the way she used to when she was a mere professor flattered by the attention. "You aren't well."

"No. I doubt I shall be. We can recover from almost death you and I, but it takes time to sleep. And for me it will take far longer than five years. A human lifetime, and I cannot risk that while those who slaughtered my...ancestors still threaten this world."

Byleth started. She didn't like to think about the missing five years of her life and how close she had come to death. Sometimes, injured mercenaries fell unconscious for days. She had heard tales of nobles who lingered in such a state for months or years, kept clinging to life by healing magic. But she had awoken as if from a nap, without atrophy or disorientation. "I'm not a dragon. At least I don't think I am. Some strange things happened in Fhirdiad."

"Tell me."

Byleth did. She told her about the memories that weren't her own that the Titanus had awakened and about raining shrapnel down on the city, about seeing Caspar and Ferdinand's' bodies and the Ashen Demon reawakening and about coming back to herself and bringing Ingrid back from the edge of death. Rhea's brow furrowed more and more as she spoke, gripping the arms of the chair until her knuckles were white. "Sometimes, I feel human and sometimes it's as if I have something else within me." All the power of Sothis and none of the comfort. What am I really?"

Rhea's gaze fixed at a point just beyond her. "I told you that the Goddess gifted you her power. Is it so shocking that you might share memories as well?"

"No, I suppose not." Terrifying, yes, but not shocking. She wished desperately for Sothis. She would know what to make of all this. "My father's diary said that I haven't had a heartbeat since before we left the monastery. Why? Why do I feel like I'm being pulled in two directions? What happened to me?"

Rhea shuddered. "Please, don't. I swear that on the day Agartha falls I will answer that question, but not now. Know only that I never meant you harm." She seized Byleth's hands with more force than she would have thought possible. "If by human, you mean the capacity for love and friendship, then you are as human as anyone. But you have been granted immense magical power and power changes a person. You can shape Fódlan to your will, just as the Goddess did. Use that power more wisely than those of us who have ruled in her stead."

"Rhea..."

"Please, I need to recover what strength I can. I need to see Agartha defeated with my own eyes, and then I'll give you all the answers you and Claude both seek." Her eyes flashed, once more the slightly frightening Archbishop who brooked no defiance. "Answers come in the Goddess' time whether we want them or not."

Byleth shivered. She did want answers, but for the first time she wondered what awaited her at the end of this journey.

* * *

The day of the ball drew ever closer and Garreg Mach was alive with activity. Workman moved about, repairing the last of the damage from six years ago. The chandeliers were polished to a shine and new flowers were grown in the greenhouse to ornament the entrance and reception halls. Knights polished their dress armor and cooks ransacked to the library in search of exotic recipes. Everyone seemed determined to make up for the missed Millennium Festival.

The uncrowned Queen of Fódlan spent most of her time sitting under a tree.

She had found the place shortly after the first mock battle. The crest of a hill afforded a wonderful view of the lake in the valley below. Most of the animals had already settled in for the winter, but a few brave deer would come and investigate every now and again. It was quiet, the problems of rulers and goddesses very far away. The frost on the ground didn't care who she was and didn't mind that Edelgard's head rested in her lap.

Byleth ran her fingers through Edelgard's hair as she dozed. The only knowledge she had of secret love affairs was from books confiscated from the students. The stories were full of narrow escapes and dramatic misunderstandings. None of them prepared her for how quiet and peaceful it would be to slip away from the outside world and simply be two women in love.

Edelgard's eyes fluttered open. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"You've been burning the candle at both ends since we returned. You deserve a nap." She had expected that consolidating her hold over Adrestia and the Alliance and preparing for the summit with the surviving Kingdom lords to swallow her time. What she hadn't quite expected was for Edelgard to throw herself into helping Lorenz with the rebuilding effort. "I worry about you pushing yourself so hard."

"That grain won't ship itself. It's my fault there's a shortage in the first place." She turned her face away. "Until I die, I will do everything I can to make up for my mistakes."

"You won't die anytime soon. I forbid it." She kept stroking Edelgard's hair as if by her touch she could tell her how precious her life was and that she still deserved some happiness. "Sometimes I think you're the only thing that makes sense. I feel human when I'm with you."

"Mercenaries aren't supposed to have silver tongues."

"No, I mean…" She fumbled for the words. As much as Edelgard had softened, her disgust with the Children of the Goddess had been palpable during the war and she had mostly avoided them since. "When I was in Fhirdiad, I had these voices in my head that weren't me, telling me things that I don't remember. I felt like the Ashen Demon again." She buried her face in her hands. "So maybe I'm just a monster pretending to be human after all."

"Oh Byleth." She pried Byleth's hands away and cupped her cheeks, forcing them to look at each other. "I've heardvoices of the dead since I was twelve years old. You are as human as I am."

"Even without a heart?"

"Granted, you're not very demonstrative but—"

"I was being literal." She swallowed. She had told some people the mystery of her lack of a heartbeat, but they always thought it was an elaborate prank. Even Claude had only managed a strained _Good one, Teach. "_Listen."

Edelgard's face colored, but she rested her head against Byleth's chest. Byleth held her breath. If she had had a heart, it would been pounding. Edelgard was terribly soft and terribly warm against her despite the cold day. Byleth forced herself to look down. Edelgard listened intently for several long moments before it seemed to dawn on her what she was hearing. Or rather, what she wasn't. Her lips parted as she looked up in disbelief. "How?"

"I don't know. I've been like this since I was a baby. And I've never felt things as strongly as most people. Until you showed up."

"I see. Well, it must be some sort of strange medical condition. And plenty of people don't feel strongly. I had some of them in my court. I promise you they were human."

"But what if, what if we beat the Agarthans and I find out that I'm something else? Still think I should have power over the people?"

Edelgard winced. "I am ashamed of my earlier behavior. The problem was never that Rhea and the others weren't human. It was that they lied to prop up a system that caused so much suffering, that she used faith to control us." She traced the top of Byleth's ear. "So even if you were the Goddess herself come again, I would tell you to let us make our own mistakes. If I can live to see people rise and fall by merit instead of because of some magic blood, I'll be content." She kissed Byleth before pillowing her head on her chest again. "As for the rest of it, you are the woman I love and I will stay for as long as you want me."

Byleth swallowed again for different reasons. "Thank you," she said and resumed stroking Edelgard's hair. "I guess if I'm still going to be queen, I should start thinking about how this country is going to look."

"That would be advisable, yes." Byleth couldn't be sure because of the angle, but she thought Edelgard's lips might have twitched.

It beat thinking about questions she couldn't answer. "Well, I still think you were right that power should be in the hands of people who deserve it. But the tricky part would be deciding who does deserve it. How exactly were you going to find the them?"

Edelgard shifted again so that they could look at each other more easily. She was the emperor once more, not just Byleth's lover. "You mean if I survived? I was planning to make Dorothea a minister and have her help me find other talented commoners. Soldiers who distinguished themselves would be promoted rapidly, like Randolph and Ladislava. Of course, I had no wish to dispossess nobles who have proven their competence and loyalty just because they were nobles either."

Byleth frowned. "That still seems like it's leaving a lot to chance. And wouldn't nobles have had a leg up anyway since their parents already train them how to be nobles but commoners don't?"

"I didn't say I had all the details worked out. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted someone talented and kind to follow me as Emperor." She stroked Byleth's cheek. "At least I got that part right."

"Now who's the flatterer?" Byleth asked but leaned into her touch all the same. "Maybe you and Lorenz can help me hash out a decent policy before the nobles come. Most of the old families have died out, but I don't want to drive the rest of them into rebellion by favoring all my friends. I wish you could come to the ball with me."

"You'll do fine. I've never seen a noble able to cow you yet."

"It's not that. I just really wish I could go to the ball with you. Share a dance, sneak off to the Goddess Tower, all the silly little things we never got a chance to do six years ago." She pulled Edelgard close. "I wish I didn't have to hide you away. Hardly a way to court a lady."

Edelgard smiled. "Queens and emperors rarely have their romances play out like in tales. I had resigned myself to doing without it entirely. And my mother was an Imperial mistress, and not the only one, but it didn't stop her from being the love of my father's life." She looked down. "Not that the story has a happy ending."

Come to think of it, Edelgard had never spoken of her parents. "Feel like sharing?"

"I suppose you should know." Her voice changed, becoming low and rhythmic, a storyteller's voice that pulled Byleth forward. "Our story begins, fittingly enough, on the night of another ball. My father had graduated from the Academy some years prior and snuck into the Goddess Tower on a nostalgic whim. My mother had enrolled that year and was also at the tower. My father always insisted that it was love at first sight. He was already married for political reasons, but concubinage has always been accepted for the Emperor. She consented to become his lover. And so I was born."

"You said that the story didn't have a happy ending. What changed?"

"Politics." Venom crept into her voice. "Even before the Insurrection, the leading noble families held great power. My mother was only minor nobility, and Duke Aegir and Count Hevring despised her and she them. They forced my father to not only give her up, but to exile her from the capital. I would have shared the same fate if I hadn't bore a Crest. So I never knew my mother. My father never forgave the nobles and resolved to consolidate power in his own hands. They turned him into a puppet. You know the rest. There you have it: the sad, romantic tale of the emperor and his love." She shrugged. "So I truly am content with this until you tire of me."

"Stop assuming that this is all temporary. I want you to be happy." Edelgard settled against her, but Byleth turned the story over in her mind. On the battlefield, she had been a commander but also just another soldier who depended on her comrades for survival. But a ruler had power. More power than they should by the sound of things. "Your father exiled your mother? Without a trial or anything?"

"Such has always been the prerogative of the Emperor. I used it to imprison Duke Aegir. It saves time and trouble."

"No, it doesn't." Byleth frowned. "Say we get into a fight over, I don't know, the menu in the dining hall. There's nothing to stop me from throwing you in the dungeon."

"You wouldn't though."

"Of course I wouldn't. That's not the point. The point is that I shouldn't be able to do it in the first place. No one should have that kind of power over another person. I don't care if they're queen or Emperor or avatar of Sothis. Power shouldn't be absolute." She ran her fingers through Edelgard's hair. "I want you to feel safe around me, and I want everyone else to feel safe around me. No more throwing people away because it's convenient."

Edgard frowned in return. "Limiting the power the ruler has...You mean by law and not just having the good sense not to anger powerful subjects unnecessarily? It never has been done."

"Neither has eliminating nobility of blood." She helped Edelgard to her feet. "What do you say to running the idea by Lorenz and Claude?"

They found Lorenz and Claude in one of the meeting rooms on the top floor, poring over maps and troop reports. Claude looked up and smiled. "How are my favorite lovebirds? Brazen of you to come here together. Tongues might wag."

Edelgard scowled and crossed her arms. "Could you stop joking for one moment and apply that tactical mind of yours? Byleth wants your help."

Claude straightened and motioned for Byleth to speak. Byleth cleared her throat. "We all want to unite Fódlan and opened her to the outside world, but I've been thinking that we can do more, especially since the old nobility was decimated." She explained as best she could about her ideas of replacing the nobility of blood with a nobility of merit and limiting her own power. Claude leaned in, listening with an expression that was even harder to read than usual while Lorenz pressed his lips into a thin line. "I'm tired of hearing stories about my students being raped or abused to give birth to the perfect heir and of rulers abusing their power. If I can't make things better, what good am I?"

Lorenz's gaze narrowed. "May I assume the impetus for destroying a thousand years of tradition came from you, Edelgard?"

"I was as surprised as you that she shares my ideals. Even more surprised that she expanded them." She took a half-step forward. "I'm many things, but don't tell me you believed the propaganda that I can control minds."

"You would need to replace an entire class of people who have been trained from birth to rule. No one is born knowing how, as much stock as we place in our blood. These would-be worthies would have to be found and educated."

Byleth and Edelgard looked at each other and then at the floor. She still didn't have a good answer.

"You need to set up schools similar to the Officers' Academy and offer classes in the various things a noble needs to know to effectively manage his territory. I would suggest schools in every province to teach the basics of reading, writing, bookkeeping, and such and then the best performing students could be sent to the capital for intensive education."

Byleth stared at him. Lorenz had come to value commoners, Ignatz and Leonie especially, but she thought his role would be merely to poke holes in her idea, forcing her to refine it into something workable. "You've thought about this before."

"Well, the lands and titles can't be left in abeyance forever and divvying them up among the surviving lines would merely lead to more pointless factionalism. Therefore, a new noble class must arise." He smiled sadly. "Alas, I can't take credit for the idea. After he was attainted, Ferdinand was preoccupied with what would replace the dying nobility. The least I can do for an old friend is make sure his ideas live on."

Edelgard closed her eyes. "Ferdinand, I misjudged you, my friend. And you as well, Lorenz."

"So, nobles who are nobles for as long as they live and then they're replaced by the next generation of talented kids. It's a lot of work, but I really like the idea of some talented kids from despised lineages becoming dukes or ministers." Claude's smile reached his eyes. "And we could use the other reforms to pacify the remaining old nobility. if you limit yourself, that's power they don't have to worry about you taking from them. And if there's one thing I've learned as leader of the Leicaster Alliance, it's that nobles will do anything to protect their power."

Byleth swallowed a lump in her throat. With people like these three at her side, she could do anything. Even rule Fódlan. "Will you help me iron out the details so that I have something official-sounding to present to Gautier and the others?"

"I'd love to, Teach. Nothing motivates someone to fight more than visualizing the future they hope to create."

* * *

When Byleth entered the reception hall on the night of the ball, her first thought was that her time powers had malfunctioned and she had been transported to six years prior. A string quartet played a soft waltz that made her feel warm and peaceful. The chandeliers glowed with thousands of lights. Dozens or hundreds of people sipped champagne while talking of things from fashion to politics Seteth kept vigil in a corner for signs of mischief. Even the court dress was not so very different from uniforms of the Academy.

But the people here were older, scarred. She received curious glances as she passed, but now there was also the nervousness of subjects evaluating their new queen. She threw her shoulders back and lifted her head, as befitted a queen and emperor. She endured small talk because Claude had taught her how important it was to make others feel listened to. She tried not to hyperventilate as she mounted the stairs to the audience chamber and the most important hours of her life.

She was the last to enter. The surviving great lords of Fódlan had assembled: Counts Gloucester and Galatea, Bergliez's surving son, Countess Varley and others she didn't even know by reputation. Towering over them all was Margrave Gautier, red hair tied back and brown eyes flashing. Byleth's gaze sought her allies. Lorenz next to his father, Ingrid next to hers and it was hard to tell which of them was leaning harder on the other for support. Ashe, looking handsome but awkward in court dress emblazoned with the arms of Rowe. And, of course, Claude at the head of them all, with the scroll in his hand and a smile on his face as he waited for their mutual ambition to be fulfilled.

"Your Majesty," he said with the barest hint of a joke in his voice as he bowed. "Your court awaits you."

She managed a small smile of her own. "Duke Riegan."

Margrave Gautier strode forward. "Your Imperial Majesty," he said, "we aren't your court yet."

"Well, I've always been an optimist," Claude said with a shrug. "Albeit an optimist with a plan. A unified Fódlan can offer plenty of benefits to you."

"Yes, Cornelia's dogs were full of talk of the benefits of the Empire, if only we were willing to sell our souls. What I see before me is just another Emperor, perhaps merely a former one's puppet."

Byleth kept her expression neutral. It was a miracle she didn't hear the accusation more than she did, but it still stung, especially now that she knew what she and Edelgard meant to each other. "The crown will be restoring the cathedrals and priories that the old Empire razed and restoring churchmen to their old positions. Does that sound like Edelgard's handiwork?" In truth, Edelgard had almost had a seizure when Claude had suggested that. "You are after all from the_ Holy_ Kingdom of Faerghus."

"I'm more concerned she's just looking to kick us in the teeth," Bergliez said. "Everybody knows Emperor Edelgard only abdicated to save her life and this woman spent half a year trying to destroy us before she seized to the crown. Have I been made Minister of Military Affairs? Have I been consulted at all since my dear father's death? No!"

"Oh, come off it Bergliez," said Countess Varley in a way that suggested this wasn't the first time Bergliez had complained. "You've spent your whole life disgracing your father and terrified that he would pass you over for Randolph or Caspar." She turned to Byleth. "I for one wish to hear how Her Majesty plans to put this continent back together."

"I do have some ideas. With no borders separating you, goods and people from less affected parts of Fódlan will be free to flow to areas that were more damaged, allowing us to recover in a handful of years."

"So I'm to subsidize the likes of Gautier and Bergliez?" Gloucester said. "After I knelt to the Empire to save my people? Whose idea was that?"

"Mine, Father."

Gloucester turned to Lorenz, his face an almost perfect 'o' of surprise. "My son?"

"We must start thinking beyond our short-term interests. A Fódlan where people aren't spending their gold rebuilding for the next fifty years is one where they are patronizing Gloucester merchants, which is better for us in the long run."

"And you'll be a rare breed," Claude said. "We'll be creating a bunch of new nobles to deal with all the titles in abeyance. Including a few Gloucester knights who distinguished themselves at Fhirdiad. Unlike you worthies gathered here, they'll only hold their titles and lands for life, and they'll be anxious to follow the old families when it comes to fashion, etiquette, and other noble things."

That got their attention. All at once, the nobles were talking over each other in disbelief or disapproval, with Ashe, Ingrid, and Lorenz trying and failing to let Byleth get a word in edgewise. But Byleth had quieted her share of rowdy classrooms. She clicked one heal on the floor and cleared her throat. They fell silent. "Let me explain in full, if you please."

She continued."You will continue to hold your lands and titles under the customary laws for as long as your lines exist. But this war has taught me that Fódlan needs change if it is to survive. We need good people with a head for ruling and civil servants to assist them. This is how you're going to get it."

"My own line will go extinct when I die," Gautier said. "Your way will ensure that Crests are no longer valued. These new nobles will have no reason to marry into Crest-bearing families, and they will eventually go extinct. How do you plan to protect us from the likes of Sreng without them?"

"Ideally, with a peace treaty and more trade," Claude said. "But until that day, Holst Goneril has generously offered to send half the troops manning Fódlan's Locket to the northern border of Faerghus. That is what happens when we work together. I know nothing can soothe the pain of losing your son, but you can at least protect your people."

"But what about us?" Logically, Count Galatea couldn't be older than fifty-five, but hunger and hard living had aged him twenty years. "We're already starving. Ingrid was our best hope of survival because of families could marry into the Crest of Daphnel. But in your world, what reason would someone worthy have to offer for her hand?"

"Father…"

"I have tried so hard to keep you from knowing hunger, my dear. But our land is so close to ruin, and I still see no salvation other than you making a good marriage."

It was easier to feel righteous when those who opposed you were villains who abused their wives and children or spent lavishly while their subjects starved. It was harder to stand against good men were simply doing their best in a system that was showing signs of breakdown. "Those new civil servants will include experts in agriculture, and the best will be sent to Galatea as soon as possible. Until that day…Ingrid Brandi Galatea step forward."

Ingrid looked at her father and at Byleth before she limped forward. "Because of your wounds, I won't make you kneel." She told Ingrid's hands and mustered her best regal bearing. "By the order of Byleth Eisner, Queen of Fódlan, in recognition for your valor at Fhirdiad and elsewhere, you are to be granted the lands and incomes formerly held by House Aegir to be held during your life." She allowed herself a small smile. "I know it's a long way from Faerghus, but it was the best I could do on short notice."

"I—Professor. Your Majesty!" Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes. "Thank you. Thank you. If this income is invested wisely, it would be enough to sustain both Aegir and Galatea for generations. Thank you!"

"There is of course, one condition." Her smile grew a bit wider. "I meant it when I said I wouldn't have talk of you being a cripple."

"You know, this could work out quite well." A flash of pain crossed Countess Varley's face. "No more watching helplessly as our daughters are tied to chairs in service of some deranged idea of 'marriageability.' Yes, I think Fódlan could do with a bit more rising by merit instead of depending on Crests."

"You are a very wise woman," Claude said. "But none of you have guessed the best thing that we can offer any of you." He unrolled the scroll he had been carrying. "This is the Charter of Liberties, which Queen Byleth grants to you and to all the people of Fódlan in perpetuity. I would particularly draw your attention to clause thirteen, which states that no taxes can be imposed or wars declared without the advice and counsel of the nobles and a selection of the village headmen, as well as clause nineteen, which guarantees lives, property and liberty unless convicted of high crimes by a disinterested judge."

The next hour was spent letting the nobles read over the charter and listening to concerns, requests for clarification, and suggestions. Byleth felt like her head was going to split open by the end of it, but at last Gautier stepped forward. "I'm not at all certain about most of this, but I have no better plan for my allies or vassals." He knelt and took both of Byleth's hands. "By the light of the Goddess, I pledge myself to you as my rightful queen, now and forevermore."

One by one they came to her, saying those words or similar. Byleth felt a hard lump in her throat. After so long, they had done it. Fódlan was one nation, and with time her people would combine in a glorious mosaic that would contain the best of each.

Claude was the last. He knelt and then shook his head. "I won't swear the oath. My own destiny lies elsewhere, so instead, here before these witnesses, I cede Riegan to the crown." His voice dropped to a whisper. "To you, my friend."

Once more, Byleth felt tears that made no sense threaten to overtake her. She swallowed them down even though they burned like fire in her throat. "Thank you. Thank you all. I swear to govern with justice and wisdom as far as I am able. And now I bid you a good night. Enjoy the festivities!" She managed to leave the audience chamber without fainting and considered it one of her more impressive victories.

Claude followed her out. His grin was wide, and his posture loose without any trace of affectation. "We did it, my friend! We did it!" He enveloped her in a hug and she squeezed back as hard as she could. "Just you wait, in a few years they'll wonder why they didn't think of all this sooner."

"Yes, Professor, you did it," Ingrid said as she and Ashe appeared in view. "My father is overwhelmed. So am I. You saved Galatea tonight. I'll never be able to thank you enough."

"I should be thanking you."

"It's all so overwhelming. Fódlan united and me a count. It's like something out of a storybook." Ashe's expression turned thoughtful. "I still don't know how to be a count. I offered Edelgard a post managing my lands, but I'm pretty sure she won't take it now."

"A post?" Her brain felt slow after hours dealing with nobles. "She never mentioned that."

He nodded. "It was during the victory celebration after we liberated Fhirdiad. She seemed interested but conflicted. Now she has even more reasons to stay at court. Unless I misunderstood?"

Byleth managed to turn a yelp of surprise into a cough. At this rate, there would soon be no point in keeping her romance a secret. "That's up to Edelgard. Being a steward would play to her strengths, but well there's no point pretending that I want her to stay right here with me."

"Speaking of her, I have it on good authority that the Goddess Tower will be unoccupied for the remainder of the night, if Your Majesty wants to get away from all that noise and catch up." Claude winked at her, earning a slap on his arm from Ingrid.

Byleth couldn't even muster enough annoyance to glare at him. She was too busy tingling with fresh excitement. At the Goddess Tower with Edelgard on the night of the ball at long last... "Thank you. Thank you all so much."

She forced herself not to run when she returned to the main hall. It wouldn't do to cause gossip. She was sure that her heart would have been pounding if it beat it all, but her breath came in shorter and shorter gasps as she climbed the stairs to the top of the Goddess Tower. She threw open the wooden door and was rewarded by the sight of Edelgard gazing at the stars.

Byleth held herself still. Edelgard looked liked a goddess herself under starlight, both serene and thoughtful. Her mouth went dry. Maybe she was being silly, acting like one of the younger students mooning after a girl, but then she had never gotten a chance for frivolity. She cleared her throat. Edelgard turned to her, and a smile spread across her face. "Queen Byleth of Fódlan, the whole monastery is buzzing with gossip about your meeting with the nobles. Shouldn't you be down there toasting with everyone who I'm sure is anxious to curry favor?"

"It can wait for one night." She crossed the distance between them and threaded their fingers together. Of all the hands she had taken tonight, Edelgard's were the warmest. "It's done, El. You'll have your nobility of merit and Claude his opening of the borders, and I hope I can do something to stop the abuse of commoners that I've seen."

"If anyone can, my darling, it's you." She glanced down before staring into Byleth's eyes so deeply that it seemed she could see right through her. "You've dared more than I and my most idealistic, and you've accomplished more without falling into darkness and perpetrating the very cruelties you sought to destroy." Byleth opened her mouth but Edelgard put a finger to her lips. "Don't speak to me of demons. You've been the very model of the ideal knight since the day you protected me from Kostas. I gave my crown to you for a reason, and I remain certain you are the only one who can lead Fódlan as it should be led."

"You have a silver tongue, Edelgard von Hresvelg." Maybe if they kept giving each other compliments, someday they would feel themselves worthy. "I rather like it." She kissed Edelgard, tracing her lips with her tongue until Edelgard parted to let her in. Byleth took her time, drawing out gasps and little whimpers and letting Edelgard do the same to her. Edelgard was delightfully mussed when they broke apart.

"Do normal people like kissing that much?" Byleth asked.

Edelgard chuckled. "When have we ever been normal? Though I suppose the queen and her terribly scandalous mistress are normal by our standards."

"And you're content with that?"

Edelgard tilted her head to one side. "You keep asking me that. And I keep telling you that I am but you don't believe me. I know how the game is played and frankly everything after Enbarr has been a gift. What's wrong? Why _don't_ you believe me?"

Byleth took a moment to answer. Edelgard's tone reminded her too much of when they had been teacher and student and she had asked a question in a seminar that Byleth hadn't been prepared for. "I suppose it's because I think you deserve better. Not so much better than me as, well, look at you. Brilliant and hard-working and able to take on twenty or thirty ordinary soldiers by yourself. Nobles here or abroad would be happy to take you into their service, even if some of them would have to do it under the table." That was it, and the sudden knowing of it was like a weight on her shoulders. "You should be so much more than some royal plaything."

Edelgard raised an eyebrow. "I'm hardly a plaything."

"Still you should be more, and I don't know how to give it to you without smashing my court into pieces."

"And you won't do that, not even for love. I wouldn't love you if you were so silly."

"Maybe you should take Ashe—sorry, Count Rowe—up on his offer." The words tasted strange in her mouth but she managed to get them out. "I'm told that the Silver Maiden rivals only Enbarr. You could do so much good there for Ashe."

"He told you?" She flinched and pulled away, hugging her arms close to her chest. "Do you want me to go?"

Blast. She had still managed to say the wrong thing. "I want you at my side and I can't ever imagine not wanting it." She pulled Edelgard to her. She was shivering, though whether was from cold or emotion was impossible to say. She kissed the top of her head. "I just…you shouldn't live your life for me. If I snapped my fingers and Lorenz was king instead, what would you do?"

"Before or after I stopped laughing?" She sighed. "I would go and try to do some good in the world."

As Byleth had thought. "Then you should go." But it didn't have to end there, did it? Not when the likes of Aegir and Varley had had responsibilities far from their homes and still managed a home life, however much they'd squandered it with their cruelty. "I'd simply have to join you instead."

Edelgard looked up at her in surprise. "Pardon?"

"I'm ruling a whole continent now, and I'd rather spend the royal treasury on things other than new palaces." Byleth's mind whirred. This could work. "If I were to spend half a year 'imposing' on Ashe by taking over a hunting lodge or something, well that's more than a lot of noble families get to see each other. And you would have to come to court with him from time to time for the rest of the year."

"I would." Her lips twitched, though she couldn't quite manage a smile. "You always try to get the best of all worlds, don't you?"

"It's worked out for me so far." She pushed away a strand of hair that had fallen in front of Edelgard's face. "And I won't be queen forever, for the simple reason that I'm unwilling to do the thing a queen normally has to do to have an heir, and since I'll have to choose one anyway I'd rather do it before court life drives me completely mad."

"A successor who isn't your own child?" Another laugh. "The same as my own plans once upon a time. I think I'd like to learn the joys of idling with you, if you would still have me by then."

"Then this has been the night of planning for the future. Only one thing remains."

"Oh?"

Byleth smiled. The strains of a waltz wafted from below. "May I have this dance?"

* * *

Byleth padded through the halls the next morning hours before the chapel bell would summon anyone else to wakefulness. She had discarded all the trappings of her position and donned mercenary's garb and a plain black cloak that led her blend into the shadows. This was no errand for the queen, but for Byleth Eisner alone.

The graveyard was silent. Even in the darkness, she could make out the outline of her father's grave. Grief cut through her heart, not as sharply as it had when she had held him in her arms and watched rain and her tears mix together, but it h stillurt like a knife wound. She knelt before the stone. Someone had managed to take very good care of this and the other graves despite the ruin other parts of the monastery had fallen into, and there was little for her to do but sit vigil.

And talk. "Hi, Dad." She felt foolish talking to a rock, but Manuela had sworn that it would help. "I'm sorry I didn't come last year. And I guess, if you know anything, then you know why I didn't come before that. We're closing in on the people that killed you. I hope that makes you happy. Claude made me a queen. I know you'd laugh at me prancing around like a real noble. To tell you the truth, I laugh at myself. And, I met a girl. Well, not met. Yes, the same girl you teased me about back then. And we're pretty happy together. I feel so silly around her, but it's a good kind of silly. You would—" Byleth closed her eyes. She had tried, but everything felt so raw. "Oh Goddess, I miss you Dad."

"We know you do."

Byleth rose and turned. Claude was a little behind her, carrying one of the magic lights. And with him were all of her precious fawns and Edelgard. "I still don't know anything about losing a parent, but even I know that you shouldn't be alone right now."

"Thank you."

They crowded around her in the darkness, Edelgard and Claude pressing close on either side. They didn't speak, but it was enough to simply let the warmth settle over her and know that whatever waited for her after they had defeated the Agarthans, she had those that loved her.

Claude broke away. "You know in Almyra, remembrances of the dead aren't purely somber occasions." He removed a small hip flask from his belt."To Jeralt!"

"To Captain Jeralt!"

"To Dad!" If there was ever a way her father would want to be remembered, it was with a drinking party.

But before she could take more than a sip, a fresh set of footsteps echoed across the stairs leading down to the cemetery. "I thought I might find you here," Rhea said. "I didn't expect the alcohol." Something small and uncertain and, above all, young entered her voice. "May I join you? I loved him too."

Edelgard hissed under her breath, but Byleth put a hand on her arm. This was no time for hatreds. "Of course."

Rhea found a place between Ignatz and Marianne, her desire to stay away from Edelgard evidently outweighing any desire to be close to the grave or Byleth. "Rest well, my old friend. I've tried to do right by your daughter. I hope it was enough. May you ever journey with the Goddess." She bowed her head.

They stood there like that in solemn vigil, those of devout faith or none, united only in their desire to soothe Byleth. What she had done to deserve all the blessings she had been given, she had no idea, but she promised all the same to be as good as she was capable of being.

"Professor, Rhea, I need to speak to you." Shamir strode across the grass still in her traveling clothes. "I hate to interrupt, but I think you would consider this urgent."

Only one thing could summon Shamir out in the darkness instead of waiting til morning. Byleth trembled. "You found them."

"Right where Claude said they would be. I didn't stick around for long, but that place is strange. Gave even my most experienced men the shivers."

"It doesn't matter," Rhea said. "If my life means anything, it means that I must put an end to this shadow that has threatened Fódlan for far too long."

"You can't," Byleth said with all the royal authority she could muster. "You're still so weak." Goddess knew she had buried enough people for a lifetime.

"I have strength enough for this. You could no more keep me away from this battle than you could Edelgard. Isn't that right, scion of Hresvelg?" There was something odd about the way Rhea pronounced the name, as if the fact of her lineage should call Edelgard to battle. "Or do you hate me so much that you would abandon the land Wilhelm sought to restore?"

"It's not my blood that compels me." Edelgard gritted her teeth. "But you're right. In this, we are allies."

Byleth looked at the grave. Soon the army would muster for what she hoped was the last time. They would do their best to put an end to Thales and to a thousand years of terror. No more Edelgards or Lysitheas. No more puppetmasters manipulating the world from the shadows. Fódlan would be free to heal and grow. Her father had never been much for vengeance, but she thought he would appreciate that.


	17. Mercy in the Dark

Edelgard reasoned that she knew more than anyone alive about Agartha. She and Hubert had been piecing together scraps of information since the day she was released from the dungeons. They were the remnants of an ancient civilization of immense power who had no obvious commonalities with the nations of Fódlan or elsewhere. She still hadn't been prepared for the immense city stretching out before her. The buildings seemed to rise from the stone itself, with sharp angles and cubelike protrusions. Most unnerving of all were the lights. Instead of the torches or lanterns that would have lit an ordinary city, the buildings themselves seemed to glow, veins of light crisscrossing the surface in the same patterns that marked Agarthan clothing. She thought every bit of superstition had been ground out of her beneath the palace, but this place seemed right out of the sermon on the wrath of the Goddess.

She edged closer to Byleth, and so did Lysithea. Byleth had relieved Edelgard of command for this mission, instead returning her to her old role of bodyguard and second. Edelgard was happy to take it. Being underground in the place of her torturers was easier with Byleth near and she couldn't shirk this last battle when she was so close to fulfilling her silent oath.

They moved gingerly down a flight of stairs deeper into the darkness until it swallowed up even the Agarthan light and Edelgard's sight failed her. Her other senses rose to compensate. She was aware of Lysithea's rapid breathing as she fought to tamp down her terror in a place they dared not use the magical light. Edelgard took Lysithea's hand and was aware of the warmth and pressure when she squeezed it in return. She heard the soft sound of Byleth's boots on the stairs and the faint jostle of Claude's quiver as he walked. Most of all, she was aware of Rhea, less by the sound of her movements than the uncomfortable pressure she forced into Edelgard's chest. She had dreamed night and day of casting Rhea and her false religion down, but here she was fighting at her side. Because as much as they hated each other, they were bound together by Byleth and a duty to end Agartha. For today alone, Edelgard's blade was in service to the Archbishop.

Her hand closed over the hilt of her dagger. Today, those responsible for Dimitri's madness would at last meet their end. She had been a member of House Blaiddyd in only the most technical sense and, even if she could somehow summon Dimitri's ghost and explain the truth of Duscur, he would still demand her head for all the things she had actually done to him. But she was also the last of the family left._ I've carved my own path like you wanted, and I promise justice will be done for all of us._

The air grew warmer and drier as they descended and a faint red glow heralded the end of the darkness. At last they reached the bottom of the stairs and found themselves in a large hall. More strange growths protruded from the walls. Their tops were crossed with the same veins of light, but their lower halves glowed with fire. Long tables filled with various tools dominated most of the open space. Hammers, tongs, and knives interspersed with arcane tools whose name and function Edelgard could only guess at. "Is this some kind of forge?"

"It looks like it," Claude said. "But for what?"

Both their gazes went to Rhea, whose eyes hardened in return. "I don't know. I heard of many weapons, but I only saw some when I was very young. This unnatural place is as foreign to me as you."

"Regardless," Claude said, clearly not believing Rhea was telling the whole truth any more than Edelgard did, "I'd love the chance to get my hands on some of their weapons. Spread out, everyone."

Edelgard took the easternmost row of tables, as far from Rhea as she could get. Most of the objects were recognizable as knives of various sizes, their edges sharp as swords. Surgical implements? But no, she knew the instruments by which the Agarthans had violated her and her siblings' flesh. Neither did they look like leatherworking tools.

She found her answer some minutes later at the table in the furthest corner. Human bones had been laid out and carefully polished and treated with a substance whose odor made Edelgard's head swim. She wasn't squeamish about such things, but it was an unpleasant sight. Some of them bore signs of damage, bits and pieces cleaved away by strokes too clean to have occurred in in battle. Others had been...carved into familiar shapes. Here was the Lance of Ruin, there was Areadbhar, here was a perfect copy of Luìn. And, at the very end, the Sword of the Creator. All were missing their Crest Stones. No, not missing. She thought for the first time in months of Aymr. Thales' smiths had been pleased with themselves when they handed her there masterwork. They had taken a Relic of an Elite lost to time, they said, and modified the Crest Stone to accept her Crest of Seiros. It was a short leap from that to carving their own Relics. Only the last step of implanting the Crest Stones remained.

The Crest Stones themselves lay on a nearby table, glittering like rubies, some emblazoned with sigils and some plain and all emitting a malevolent power that turned her stomach. The shapes were unique to each and somehow familiar as if Edelgard had seen them before. But where? The only time she had been near a Crest Stone other than Aymr's was—

Her hand clapped over her mouth and she staggered backwards. Thales had been insistent that she bring back bones and Crest Stones from the Holy Tomb, despite her protestations that common grave robbing was beneath her dignity. Byleth had defeated her, but Metodey and his thugs had made off with a respectable minority of the spoils. She had always assumed they were the source of her Beast army. To see the truth now, long after she realized the enormity of her mistakes seemed a cruel joke of its own. She had imagined that she could use the Agarthans, but all along they had been using her instead. "No. Oh no. What have I done?"

She was aware of Byleth coming to stand behind her and her warm hands on her shoulders. "What is it?" She looked at the false Relics. "Oh."

The others too had noticed. Claude stared for a long moment before unsheathing Failnaught. He stared at the Relic, then at its doppelgänger and back again. "I guess we know what they're forging in here. And, given the look on Edelgard's face, just what happened to the plunder from the Holy Tomb." He touched the false Failnaught gingerly. "It feels the same." His eyes flew open and Failnaught clattered to the ground. "Bone. All the Relics were carved from bones."

Edelgard turned to look at Byleth. Her emotions always played subtly across her face, but there was no trace of even faint surprise. "You knew." Rhea's eyes, too, shone with anger udiluted by any other emotion. "You both knew."

Rhea heaved a sigh. "Yes. The weapons in your hands, the blood in your veins that the Church—that I—told you that marked you as fit to rule were stolen from the bone and blood of my people over a thousand years ago." She closed her eyes. "The Crests of the Elites are a legacy of the foulest sin against the Goddess, not a blessing from her."

The room went silent, shock writ on their faces. Even Claude had no commentary. Edelgard didn't know how she felt. Shock was part of it. Her faith was a ruin now, but as a child she had said her prayers every night and cherished the hope that her Crest meant Saint Seiros herself was looking out after her. There was a grim pride that she was right that the church was a fraud. And a hysterical mania that would have had her on the floor cackling in mad disbelief if she'd been somewhere safe. Relics were "forged by the hand of man" according to the Hresvelg history. Well, Solon _had_ considered himself the real human and humans beasts.

Lysithea dropped Thyrsus. "They made this? I don't want anything to do with it. I already hate my Crests! How could you teach that they were blessings when you knew that?" She launched herself at Rhea, beating on her like a child and with as much strength. "How could you?"

Rhea let her strike. Either she didn't feel the blows or felt that she deserved them. "To protect the handful of us who were left after a thousand years from meeting similar fates. If the truth were known, people I care for would be savaged for parts. There is a Goddess, and if I had to endure those who massacred the Nabateans being venerated as heroes to keep order, it was a price worth paying."

Edelgard knew what she felt now. Rage, as white-hot as the day she had been released from the dungeons. She drew herself to her full height. "A child being tied to a chair to make her marriageable is not order! A boy being thrown into the streets by his noble father because he doesn't bear a Crest is not order! A woman being raped again and again by her husband in hopes of conceiving a Crest-bearing child is not order!"

"I know." Their gazes locked. "But neither was slaughtering thousands for a fool's crusade."

"We should have this argument later." Claude picked up Thyrsus. "I hear footsteps."

Edelgard readied her axe while the others drew their own weapons or prepared offensive magic. A solitary figure stepped into the light, hands raised in surrender. Edelgard nearly dropped her axe. It was the young mage she had allowed to flee during the siege of Fhirdiad. The expression on her face was one Edelgard knew well: terror and desperation. "Please, surfacers, you have to help me."

"Do you take us for fools?" Rhea's voice held the same snarl as when she'd ordered Edelgard's execution. "The only help your kind require is help finding your way to the eternal flames."

Claude put a restraining hand on her arm. "No, wait, I want to hear this, for the entertainment value if nothing else." He motioned for the mage to continue.

"Thales knows you're here. He's going to call down the ballistic missiles—what you call javelins of light—on the city. The civilian leaders objected, but all he cares about is killing you. He trapped all the civilians on the level below. You have to free them and kill Thales before he kills us all."

Civilians. Strange to think of the Agarthans as having civilians. Logically, there had to be children and craftsmen and people who did all the other things that kept the city functioning, but her mind had populated a race of evil mages who sought the destruction of the world above and delighted in torturing children. Vermin who could be eradicated without a trace of guilt. "This could be a trap. How did she escape when those who objected are supposedly locked away?"

"Because I'm an apprentice Titanus keeper. He wanted them online to kill you or at least buy him time. I can—I can take them offline for you if free them." Her voice cracked. "Please, there are children down there. My son."

"Children," Rhea murmured. "War always hits children the hardest. So many little bodies in Zanado." She hissed in pain. "Do you know what you ask, Agarthan? Who you are asking it of?"

"You are the blood of Fell Star." She shivered and pointed at Byleth. "And that one is—"

"Don't," Rhea said. "If you know even that much, you know I have every reason to want even the memory of your people burned to ashes."

"But we did nothing to you. You would slaughter mothers just as your own mother was slaughtered." She knelt before Edelgard. "And you, you showed mercy once. Please, show mercy again."

Her muscles burned with the desire to cleave the mage's head from her body. It had been Ferdinand's idea to let her live, and Cornelia's thugs had killed him and Caspar. There were children. Children who would grow up to become scholars in fell arts even without Thales tutelage. This was probably a trap to begin with. Edelgard ought to kill her. She ought. It would be the pragmatic thing to do. Just as at Holywell. She had promised herself that she would be better, and it seemed that she meant it even when an insufferable noble busybody wasn't prodding her. "I defer to Byleth."

Similar conflicting emotions churned in Rhea's eyes before she made a frustrated sound in her throat and turned away. "As do I."

"Then we'll help you," Byleth said and raised the mage to her feet.

"Thank you. Thank you so much." There were tears in her eyes. "You're nothing like the legends, Fell Star! I'll go on ahead. Follow the orange light." And with that she melted into the darkness.

Claude whistled low. "You have no idea how many questions I have right now. For starters, why did she call Teach Fell Star and why does Rhea look like she's about to have a paroxysm?" His brows knitted together. "Solon called you that, too, right after you cut open the sky and came back with your hair different."

"She wields the Sword of the Creator." Was that panic in Rhea's voice? "Of course they would be terrified of the weapon that most threatens them."

"You'll pardon me if I take everything you're saying with a huge grain of salt today." Claude didn't raise his voice, but it was the nearest Edelgard to anger that had ever seen him. "And considering they and Edelgard were trying to get their hands on the sword, I really think that it's something about Teach herself. But what?" His voice softened as he turned to Byleth. "You know, don't you? Just like you knew about the Relics. Please, Teach. Whatever secrets you're keeping, I think I speak for everyone here that it won't change how we feel about you." His smile was pasted on. "Unless you're a cannibal. That's a dealbreaker."

"You'll think me mad."

"I'll think that you're brave."

"I think Fell Star is their name for Sothis. They think I'm her." She shuddered and looked at Edelgard, pained. Fearful. "Do you remember when I told you that I knew that the Goddess existed? I know that because she lived inside me. She woke up just before I met you and we were friends for months. She fused with me to save us both from Zaharas, and I wield that power in her stead."

What? _What?_ The Goddess wasn't real. Byleth believed in her, but those who turned their life around believed it all sorts of things to strengthen themselves. And even if the Goddess were real, she didn't take up residence in mercenaries and have chats with them. Byleth must be affected by some disease of the mind. A disease that came with a Crest thought extinct until it had been forced on Edelgard and the ability to wield the Sword of the Creator without its Crest Stone.

Her vision blurred with tears. She couldn't afford to cry in front of Rhea, but her body didn't seem to care. She had prayed again and again for the Goddess or Saint Seiros to deliver her from the dungeons. They hadn't, just as they hadn't delivered any of the thousands who had suffered because of Crests. Them being a mere legend created to prop up a corrupt nobility was preferable to believing they existed but just didn't care. But here was Byleth, either the Goddess or close enough as made no difference. And she cared. She cared so much that she had stood up to Rhea and transformed the nobility. She loved her. The Goddess loved and protected all that was beautiful in the world. The Hresvelg chaplain had told her that countless times. The Goddess had revealed herself long after Edelgard had become a twisted mass of scars and rage at an unjust world.

"Why?" she whispered. She didn't trust herself to speak louder. "Why now and not before they killed everyone?"

"I don't know." Byleth didn't look like a goddess. She looked vulnerable and afraid. "I'm still the same person you've always known."

"Well, I guess that explains why Teach can wield the Sword of the Creator. Though I've got to say, you don't sound much like the Goddess that the church teaches about. A little less omnipotent figure coming down from the sky and a little more really powerful mage who's good with a sword. Did you know about this, Rhea?"

Rhea had gone very pale. "She merged with you and left? Sothis doesn't speak to you anymore?"

"Not since I woke up. Except those things in Fhirdiad that I told you about."

"Why like this? Why just give you that power and leave? She must know how needed she was and how broken the world is in her absence."

"Stop it." Claude's voice was firm, as if he were the cleric lecturing on faith instead of the other way around. "You're not giving humanity enough credit. Sure the world is broken, but we have the power to fix it. We don't need some figure up in the sky." He put an arm around Byleth. "You're right. You're the same person you always were and you're enough. Though I do have a million questions when we make it out of here."

The orange light appeared, ending further discussion for the moment. Edelgard did her best to focus on navigating the treacherous stairways and keeping an eye out for ambushes while ignoring higher matters. It didn't work. She had been right and wrong about so much. Crests were a sign of atrocity. Divine power acted in the world. She wondered if knowing would have changed anything. Claude was right. Byleth didn't live in the stars. She wasn't the Goddess Edelgard had been taught to pray to. The church had propped up the old corrupt system. But knowing that she hadn't been abandoned, that the church and the world might hate her, but the closest thing to the actual goddess loved her? That might have given her enough hope not to fall completely under Thales's sway. Or not.

They reached a hallway wide enough for two to walk abreast with niches in the wall at regular intervals as if they had once held statuary or other art. Art didn't seem like it suited the Agarthans any more than the children they were rescuing. Edelgard took up the rear guard and Byleth joined her. An awkward silence hung between them Edelgard wished she knew how to talk about everything that had been thrown at her over the last few minutes. It shouldn't matter. Byleth had had this power long before they had become friends, let alone lovers. It shouldn't matter. But of course it did.

"El," Byleth whispered. "Please, say something. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I really am just me. I don't want to be worshiped. I just want to be a good queen and spend whatever time I can with y—"

Edelgard grabbed her and dragged her into the nearest recess. She didn't want words. She wanted confirmation that Byleth was solid flesh and not a pious story. She kissed her. Not a gentle, storybook kiss but hard enough to bruise. Her nails dug into Byleth's shoulders. Byleth gasped in her mouth, then made a little whimper that sent electric shocks to the base of Edelgard's spine. Gods and saints didn't make such noises. Only humans. She let her go and Byleth looked at her with a dazed, pleased expression. "Well, I guess that settles that."

"I suppose it does."

They hurried to catch up to the others.

The light stopped before a door that seemed to take up the whole wall. It was pale green, slightly recessed, with a purple orb where the door handle would normally be. The mage stood in front, seeming very small before such a great bulk. "You came."

"We could not leave innocents to perish, even Agarthans," Rhea said. "They are behind that door? I'm not familiar with the mechanism."

"It was built as a shelter in case of civil insurgence or invasion when we first came below ground. It's keyed to blood. Normally, either the exarch or high priest can seal or open it, but Thales had the exarch killed when he objected to sacrificing our entire race to kill you."

"So how do we get it open?"

"I was hoping you'd use those weapons of yours to blow the door apart."

Claude shrugged. "Normally I prefer a more subtle approach, but in the afternoons of a better option..." He handed Thyrsus to Lysithea. "Ready everyone? On my mark."

But Lysithea refused to take the staff. "No. It's enough that my body is laced with their foul magic. I don't need more of it. That's someone's corpse, right there!"

Claude put a hand on her shoulder. "I know it isn't pleasant, but sometimes we have to do dishonorable things to save lives."

She jerked away. "Easy for you to say. All Failnaught ever meant for you was that you were secretly heir to a dukedom."

"Then hear it from me," Rhea said. "Those are the bones of the greatest healer known to the Nabateans, far beyond my capabilities. He dedicated his life to healing any who needed it. The Relics were collected after the War of Heroes so that those killed would be remembered. I can say with certainty that he would be honored that he's still saving lives a thousand years later."

Lysithea shuddered, but her hands closed around Thyrsus. She, Byleth, and Claude stepped back while Edelgard and Rhea took positions at the outer edges. "One, two, three!"

They struck. Blasts of purple magic, the whip of the Sword of the Creator that was like lava, blue sparks from the Sword of Seiros, less impressive ones from Edelgard's axe, red arrows from Failnaught. Again and again, they battered the door until Edelgard's muscles burned. And bit by bit, the door gave way. Small cracks at first, then larger ones, then fissures like at Fhirdiad. And then, with a last shuddering groan, the engineering of Agartha gave way and Edelgard saw her people.

There couldn't have been more than two hundred of them. Young and old, with hair of every color that stood out sharply against their pale skin, and eye colors she had never seen in Fódlan. They huddled on the floor in groups of three or four, children clutching to their parents and hiding their faces in terror. One dared to turn his face and look at them with terrified, disbelieving eyes. Children, just children, trapped underground as she and her brothers and sisters had been.

"What have you done, Adria?" said one of the elders. "Bringing the Fell Star down on us?"

"Trying to save your lives." She stepped into the chamber. "Agrippa! Where are you? We're getting out of here."

The little boy who had stared at Edelgard took a hesitant step forward. Byleth sheathed her sword and knelt. "It's okay. I won't hurt you." But the boy stayed where he was. "Hey, do you want to see something fun?" She reached into her cloak and pulled out a top and set it on the ground. "My dad carved at this for me when I was your age." She set it on the ground in front of her. "I bet I can make it move without magic."

Thales and a horde of soldiers could be on them at any moment. Better to drag the civilians out if they wouldn't come. "This is no time for childish games."

But the top began to spin and the little boy forgot his fear and toddled towards it and his mother. The other Agarthans looked at each other and filed out one by one, evidently deciding that a Goddess who wanted vengeance wouldn't have bothered with toys. Edelgard let out a breath she hadn't realized that she had been holding.

Claude ushered them out. "We'll cover your retreat. Make for the entrance and ask for Ashe Ubert. He'll make sure no harm comes to you."

"Can we survive on the surface?"

"We can if we put our minds to it," Adria said. "Some of Thales' cabal lived there for years." She inclined her head towards Byleth. "Thank you, Fell Star. I kept my word. Thales will find the Titani no better than inert steel." She took Agrippa in her arms and the train of refugees began their long exodus to the surface.

Rhea wobbled and grabbed Byleth's arm for support. "I'm afraid that show of force took more out of me that I intended. We must find Thales and stop the launch of the javelins quickly or your heroism will be for nothing and I will be nothing more than a hindrance to you." She forced herself to stand up straight. "I should make for the surface alone."

"No," Byleth said. "I don't leave people behind unless I have no choice. Especially you."

"Heh, you sound so much like her. Lead on, child."

They walked for what seemed like ages. Now and again, Edelgard thought she heard the clang of weapons somewhere in the distance and hoped the civilians weren't repaying their detour by getting themselves killed. Without any lights to follow, they were reduced to heading up as often as the paths allowed and hoping it would eventually lead them to the entrance. This part of the complex had been given over entirely to military pursuits. Titani, still as promised, loomed over them. The energized columns Thales and Cornelia had been so smugly pleased to show her crackled. And between those columns was another door, more unassuming than the one they destroyed.

"Hmm. A door guarded by golems and traps. I'm sure there's nothing interesting in their at all."

Edelgard had a sudden, clear vision of the javelins of light coming down on their heads while Claude poked about. "Could you stop being so curious for one moment?"

"No. Lysithea, give me a hand here would you?" He eyed the columns. "If I can get one of those things to fire at me, do you think you could direct the energy towards the lock?"

"Claude!" Edelgard, Rhea, and Byleth said nearly in unison.

He glared at them. "This is our one chance to understand Agartha. I'm tired of legends and lies. And, if we can find a way to stop these javelins or protect ourselves, isn't it worth it?"

Byleth growled. "One chance."

Claude strode calmly towards the door. When he was within five steps, the nearest column hummed and a bolt of lightning arced toward him. Lysithea muttered under her breath and red tendrils of energy sprouted from Thyrsus. They wrapped around the lightning and it curled away from Claude and towards the door. There was a hiss and a pop, and the door slid away.

It was some sort of command post. The ceiling, unlike those in the rest of the facility, was domed in a feat that had to be a mixture of engineering and magic. Strange windows lined the walls. Instead of showing what on the other side of the wall, there were images from other parts of the facility and the woods and plains of Goneril. One window showed the civilians climbing up very close to the entrance where Ashe and the others waited. Another window showed what seemed to be a map of the compound. They were indeed very close to returning to the surface. And one wall had been given over to images of a woman who looked so like Rhea that they could have been twins. Her garb was flowing, and she carried the Sword and Shield of Seiros and wore a winged diadem on her head. She had been rendered in many different styles from painterly to caricature, the one constant a cruel expression that the church would have condemned as blasphemous. Many depicted her bleeding, pierced by Agarthan weapons as they grinned in triumph.

Rhea went a little paler. "It has been a thousand years. Is there no end to your obsession with me?"

With_ her?_

"The end is when your corpse lies broken upon the ground," Thales said. "Turn and face me, greatest of our enemies. I will enjoy destroying you before Shambhala sees its end."

Edelgard rounded furiously. There he was, the thing who had murdered her uncle and siblings and driven her mother to murder and Dimitri to madness. Who had destroyed her father as surely as if he had killed him. And this time, she no longer had any reason to bow and scrape for his favor. "I'm afraid you're the one who's going to be destroyed."

"Begone with you, insect! You couldn't even keep the crown I gave you. I have no need of you here."

The Sword of the Creator glowed in Byleth's hands. Her eyes shone with barely-controlled fury. "Surrender, or I let my friends take their richly-earned vengeance."

His laugh turned Edelgard's' stomach. "You have not changed, Fell Star. Speaking of mercy while wreaking destruction. Even the corpse that you possessed cannot save you."

"I've been called a lot of things, but never a corpse."

More laughter that rang through the room and Edelgard clenched her teeth. "Do you not know what you are? The stench of death clings to you like a shroud. The skin you cloak yourself in died long ago, sustained by your Crest Stone."

"Don't listen to him." Rhea drew her sword. "He is a liar whose every word is poison."

"You would know something about that. So desperate to see your precious mother that you would animate a corpse. I should congratulate you for proving my ancestors were right about you...Seiros."

Edelgard froze. What? She had believed that the Children of the Goddess had controlled humanity for a thousand years, but this was ridiculous. Rhea had to be a descendent of the original Seiros. For a single individual to hold the post of Archbishop for a millennium didn't so much strain credulity as snap it in half.

They all looked at Rhea, whose face had gone blank. She gripped her sword so tightly that her knuckles went white. She cast a desperate glance at Byleth, who stood as if rooted to the spot. "We are nothing alike. Child, I will explain everything to you, but we must kill him and escape this place."

"You will never escape." Purple lashes spewed from Thales' staff. And still Byleth stood there as one made straight for her head. Edelgard tackled her to the ground. The magic slammed into one of the windows and rained down sparks and debris that singed Edelgard's cape and hair. She hissed in pain. That seemed to bring Byleth back to herself. Her eyes focused once more and she shoved Edelgard off her to drag herself to her feet.

Edelgard scrambled to join her. "You aren't a corpse," she whispered.

Byleth nodded and whipped the Sword of the Creator towards him. He flicked his wrist and summoned the shield of purple energy that wavered but did not break as the Relic struck. "You fool. We created that sword. Do you imagine that your carved bones hold any power against the might of Agartha?"

"The might of Agartha is nothing but a husk of a fortress and some fancy toys. All your scheming and you only managed to give humanity the tools we needed to defeat you."

"Arrogant, like all your kind. You have no idea how to use the power of Relics or Crests that we gifted you."

"That you forced on me," Lysithea said. "But I forced myself to learn how to use it. Just so I could make sure no one else suffered like I did."

"Ah, the prototype. Join the dead as you should have long ago."

He readied another blast. Lysithea closed her eyes and raised Thrysus. Purple whips met red tendrils, lacing together as the dark magics fought for dominance. The Crest of Gloucester shimmered on Lysithea's skin and the red inched forward. Not enough. Runes hovered around Thales as he forced Lysithea's magic back. The greatest mage of humanity and of Agartha, locked in a stalemate worthy of a grand opera. And then the javelins of light would fall and the war would be over.

Edelgard never had been much for operas. She dropped her axe and drew her dagger, ducking under the magical beams to stand at Thales side. "For my family," she whispered and jabbed at his neck.

He flicked his free hand and the shield drove the blade harmlessly to the side. "I thought I taught you better than that," he said and backhanded her. Edelgard went to her knees. She tasted blood in her mouth as she smiled. Too late, Thales recognized his mistake. The momentary distraction had allowed Lysithea to gain on him and the shield meant he was just shy of the energy he needed to force Lysithea back. His eyes widened as the magic hit him full in the chest and he went flying backwards. Edelgard put a hand over her mouth. It wasn't what Dimitri would have done, but he was avenged. They all were.

Thales slammed back first into one of the screens, his arms flying outward. He caught her gaze and smiled as the life faded from his eyes. "You will never get to enjoy your victory." His laugh was a death rattle. "In the name of all Agarthans, let there be light!"

Purple light flooded the chamber, bright enough that Edelgard had to turn her face away. There was a high pitched metallic whine like nothing she had ever heard before. But Rhea apparently had. "It can't be. Get down, all of you."

Someone forced Edelgard to the ground as a chunk of the ceiling plummeted toward where she had been standing a moment before. She threw up her arms to shelter against the chaos above and around her. Her throat burned with the dust from the rubble. A small, calm part of her mind told her that this wasn't enough and she was forestalling her death by only moments unless she found a way to escape, but she didn't know what to do against such unparalleled destruction.

"Another one of those things is headed right for the civilians!" Claude shouted over the din.

Edelgard dared a glance at one of the surviving windows. The civilians were running for the entrance as fast as their legs would carry them. The image was encircled by a red target that contracted closer and closer to the middle of the window. Edelgard coughed out a laugh. They had wasted so much time saving those people and it was all for nothing and was going to get them killed besides.

"Am I to die for those people, Mother?" Rhea whispered. "As you wish."

She leapt toward the hole in the ceiling and for a moment Edelgard thought the explosion had damaged her sight. Rhea leapt from ledge to ledge with grace and strength like she had never seen before sailing into the air. Green light enveloped Rhea and when it faded, she had vanished to be replaced by a dragon. Its pristine white scales seemed to give off a light of their own. Rhea opened her mouth and spewed forth a stream of fire that consumed one javelin. It exploded in a ball of fire. She flew around in a wide circle as another javelin headed straight for her. It met the same fate as the first.

But there was no escaping the third and final javelin. Rhea hit it head on and was engulfed in another ball of flame that sent her tumbling down like a meteor and sprinkled streaks of blood on the stone below. Heedless of the danger, Byleth dashed out of shelter and into the light. Green light shimmered one final time as Rhea, bruised and bloodied, fell into her arms.

She reached out one hand and stroked Byleth's cheek. "Go, child. Leave me here and remember me like this."

"I'm not leaving you. If you can't leave on your own, I'll carry you."

She did. They ran towards the entrance, always a half-step of the debris falling around them. Edelgard's lungs burned from exertion and dust, but at last they stumbled into the sunlight once more along with the rest of the army that had been tasked with securing other parts of the facility. Seteth was at the head, barking orders with one arm around Flayn. He broke off midsentence at the sight of Rhea and was beside her in a flash.

"No. What happened? Please, wake up S—Rhea!"

Flayn darted around to the other side. Her hands glowed with healing magic. "Her wounds are serious indeed. We must return to the monastery as soon as possible."

Byleth nodded. She wasn't crying, but there was pain in her eyes. Edelgard looked from her to the ruins of the Agarthan compound to Rhea's crumpled, wounded form. Her two greatest enemies broken, if not completely destroyed, on the same day. The dream of justice had kept her going when nothing else had. But now that she had done everything that she had wanted and everything she had once thought she wanted, victory brought no consolation.

One of the soldiers approached. "Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but what do we do with them?" He jerked his hand toward the Agarthan civilians who were blinking in the sunlight and doing their best to hide their faces.

"Yes, what will you do with us, surfacers?" Adria stood before them. "Shambhala was more a prison than a home. We dreamed of one day reclaiming our place in the sun. But I never thought it would be like this."

Agrippa tugged at her sleeve. "Mama, I'm hot! And hungry!"

Claude knelt in front of him. "Well, you're welcome to some of our spare rations if you want." He smiled at Adria. "And I'm sure Her Majesty would be happy to help you find a place to settle down. Maybe someday we might even be allies."

"Claude, have you lost your mind?" Seteth's eyes widened. "These are the same people who kidnapped Flayn."

"No, Brother," Flayn said, sounding much older than her years." The people responsible for my nightmares are dead. So are the people who killed Mother. Do not punish the innocent for their crimes."

He made a frustrated noise." You're right, of course. Your Majesty, once Rhea is seen to, I will go with the Alliance soldiers and find the Agarthans somewhere they can settle. There are many places where they will not be disturbed until they wish to be."

"And perhaps someday we will wish it. It's strange to think about, living among the humans."

"I hope you do," Claude said. "Contact with different peoples enriches us all, even if we want to think that some nation is purely evil. We're all the same deep down."

The march back to Garreg Mach was melancholy despite their victory. Byleth barely spoke and kept stealing glances back at the cart where Rhea lay unconscious. Edelgard let her be. It had been very brave what Rhea or Seiros or whoever she was had done and for a people she despised, but Edelgard couldn't pretend to share Byleth's fear. Nor did she share Claude's optimism that relations with the Agarthan remnant would go as he hoped. But he had won and she had lost and that meant acquiescing to parts of his worldview that made her anxious. The war was over. She mustn't forget that.

And there was another bright spot to this day, even if she was the only one who would ever know. The war had come and gone without her needing to transform into the Hegemon. She would destroy the Crest Stone as she had promised Ferdinand and Caspar and go on to a happy life serving Arianrhod and stealing time with Byleth.

They entered the courtyard. Byleth dismounted and took a step towards the cart before she remembered herself. She shot an apologetic look at Edelgard. "I'm sorry. I just—"

Edelgard squeezed her fingers. "Go to her." She watched Byleth, Seteth, and Flayn disappear towards the third floor before setting off on her own mission.

She realized something was wrong the moment she entered the dormitory. It was subtle. Sheets ever so slightly askew, folded clothing an inch away from where she had left them, a tiny smudge on the corner of her mirror. Someone who knew what they were doing had searched her room while she was away. Her hands trembled. If they were looking for papers or other evidence of a conspiracy against Byleth, they wouldn't find it. She only had one thing that would damn her in the world's eyes.She pulled out the drawers and twisted the hidden knob on her dresser. The stuffed bear, the Flame Emperor's garb, it was all as she had left it. Except for one thing.

The Crest Stone was gone.


	18. Army of the Dead

Byleth wished Rhea was less human. She wouldn't know what the blue tint to her fingernails or the slow but steady mottling of her skin meant. Her breathing was labored and uneven like that of so many who had clung to life before succumbing to their wounds. Byleth felt as if she had been scraped raw. Her father, beloved students, and now the nearest thing she had ever had to a mother. There was nothing Thales' corruption couldn't take from her, even after his death. Worst of all was the doubt he had planted in her heart.

Flayn wiped her brow. "It is as I feared. Even if she wakes, she will not live beyond a few more weeks." She sniffed. "Such dreadful cruelty. I thought I had had my fill of losing family."

Tears formed at the corner of Seteth's eyes. He didn't try to stop them. "As have I. There are only four of us left now. Four to keep alive the memory of thousands." He put his hands on her shoulders. "But I swear that as long as I draw breath, you will never be alone again."

They were all like family. Seteth had told her that almost a year ago. And an almost family sounded so much better than being an orphan. "I swear it, too. I will keep you and your secrets safe for as long as I live." She inhaled. Part of her didn't want to be having this conversation in the sickroom or at all, but she had put it off for as long as she possibly could. "Thales and Rhea said some things while we were down there. That Relics are the bones of your kin, and that Rhea is Seiros. Is it true?"

Seteth went white. "You know? We fought a terrible war a thousand years ago. Flayn was nearly killed. She slept as you did during the five years, but for much longer and I stayed with her to keep her safe. What Rhea—Seiros—did during those centuries, I cannot say. But when we returned, she was the Archbishop of a religion that preached that our mother had made the world and would someday return to it. It was close enough to the truth and seemed the best chance of preserving what remained. More than that should be her story to tell if she wakes."

"Do you know what she did to me? Thales called me a corpse."

He shook his head sadly. "I imagine you know more than I. She was always one for secrets. I will say this. All her dreams and hopes are bound up in you. I have only seen her treat one other human that way."

"Who?"

"Don't you know? She was desperately in love with Wilhelm of Adrestia. She was his empress in all but name, and the Crest the Hresvelgs bear was given to save his life." He gritted his teeth, trying to smile but unable to manage it. "It seems history does repeat. More than that is not my place to tell. I will summon you at once if she wakes."

Byleth wandered down the stairs, and the heavy silence of the third floor gave way to the bustle of the second. She had a handful of answers that just led to more questions like what had really happened to Sothis and what was true and false in the Church of Seiros and why had she even set it up? Most of all, what was Byleth?

If she couldn't have answers, she could at least have consolation. Byleth pasted on what she hoped was a sufficiently authoritative expression for passersby and went in search of Edelgard. She found her on a bench in the gazebo, bundled up against the cold and watching a nearby kitten sleep, with a pensive expression on her face. Byleth's chest twisted. They had seen little of each other over the last few days as Byleth sat vigil, but every time she had seen Edelgard, she had seemed worried, even frightened. "May I join you?"

Edelgard gave her a weak smile and made space for her. Byleth took the spot and pressed into her side. She burrowed into the warmth as much as she could. She felt safe here. Here she wasn't the Enlightened One or the queen, but only the worried and frightened ex-mercenary Byleth.

Edelgard's fingers played across the back of her neck and shoulders. "No change?"

"No change. And even if she does wake up, she won't live much longer."

"Oh, Byleth." She pressed a kiss to the top of her head and another to her temple. "I'm afraid I'm no good with condolences, and I don't think I can let go of my hatred, but I know you love her. Take comfort in the fact that Fódlan is united and at peace under your rule, exactly as she wished."

"You're right, that's not very consoling at the moment." Her chest felt tight. She didn't know if she should tell Edelgard everything she had learned. The days when she would have hunted down any Child of the Goddess simply for existing were long past, but Seteth seemed adamant that some secrets were Rhea's alone. But then, Thales had already divulged this one, hadn't he? "She's Seiros. Seteth told me so."

"I see. I knew that the church was run by nonhumans, but for her to be alive all this time…" Edelgard closed her eyes and her voice became smaller, rougher, younger. "I was very devout when I was a child. I thanked Saint Seiros every day for bestowing her blessings on me. When I was held captive, I prayed for rescue and then for death. And Saint Seiros was right there. She made herself next thing to a god and took our prayers, but she didn't lift a finger for us when we needed her. What good is that kind of saint?"

"I don't know." Just like she didn't know why Sothis had awoken in her or what she really was. "I don't think we're very good gods."

"And I'm thankful for that."

Byleth shrugged. "I just wish I knew what I was. Why Thales called me a corpse."

"Because he was a sadist who delighted in the suffering of others." She pressed two of Byleth's fingers to the inside of her other wrist. Byleth's pulse thudded erratically. "You are alive, you are human, and I love you very much."

"Thank you, El," Byleth said and kissed her.

"Professor!"

Byleth and Edelgard sprang apart just in time to see Lorenz and Hilda beelining towards of them were pale and sweaty and Hilda looked as if she had been crying. "Professor, you have to help me. My brother, he..."

"Breathe. You're no good to Lord Holst if you can't be coherent."'

Byleth didn't know how the day could get worse, but she had the unshakable conviction that it was about to. "What's going on?"

"An army attacked Goneril territory and decimated the defenders. Lord Holst was seriously wounded."

"Someone defeated Holst?" And had come out of nowhere to do it. The Dukedom had been crushed and would have attacked closer, softer targets even if they weren't, and the Agarthan forces had been destroyed along with their base. "What do we know about this army? Bandits?"

"No bandit could beat up Holst like that." Hilda sniffed and wiped her eyes. "Some of the soldiers who escaped told me about them, but it almost sounds too creepy to be real. The soldiers were all in black and really pale. They didn't talk or demand surrender. They just burned everything in their path. And they marched under a Crest of Flames banner, just like ours, except the field was black."

Byleth looked at Edelgard, who shrugged. "Take me to these soldiers. And someone find Claude. It's all hands on deck until we figure out what's going on."

The next few days were a whirlwind of activity and bad news. Messengers were dispatched to the former Kingdom and Empire lands seeking troops while Shamir and the other scouts were sent on reconnaissance missions. Byleth heard so many tales of a mysterious "army of the dead" that her head spun. There were only two constants to the wild tales: the generals wielded dark versions of the Heroes' Relics and their path of destruction was heading south toward Enbarr.

"They're single-minded, I'll give them that," Claude said. He looked exhausted. So did Edelgard. Byleth didn't remember the last time any of them had slept. Her world had narrowed to the cardinals' chamber, now a war room covered in maps and burned down candles. "Cutting an almost straight-line towards towards the city, no matter the terrain. And leveling that terrain to boot. I've never seen anything like it."

Neither had Byleth. Not even Cornelia's pillaging of her own people compared to the level of destruction now facing them. Villages and farms had not only been burned, but even the ruins of them had been destroyed. Hundreds had been confirmed dead and thousands were missing and the local troops were helpless to stop the advance. "Ingrid's safe, but that's the only mercy. If you want to head back to Almyra, I wouldn't blame you. If we managed to survive this, I don't want a diplomatic incident on my hands. There's nothing here for you after all."

Claude was silent for a moment. "There was a time I probably would have taken you up on that. Cut my losses and saved my own hide. But these days I have something beyond my own ambitions worth fighting for. So, if it's all the same to you I'd rather get one last victory for the Golden Deer before I go home."

Byleth squeezed his hand. "Thanks."

"As touching as this is, we do have to come up with a strategy." Edelgard raked her hands through her hair. "At this rate, they'll be at Enbarr within a week."

A week before this plague threatened the greatest city on the continent. With Fort Merceus still in ruins, they stood no chance of even delaying the enemy by more than a day. "If we take only our fastest soldiers, we can reach the city before they do. If the numbers are accurate, we should be able to defeat them."

"And if they aren't?" Edelgard let out a slow breath. "I recommend that we give the city up for lost and meet them on more advantageous terrain with our full forces. Send letters to Almyra and promise Nader the fight of his life."

"You would just let them have Enbarr?" Byleth went stiff and cold. A half million souls were depending on her for protection. She was Queen of Fòdlan, but her first and most precious style would always be Emperor of Adrestia. "It's your home."

"Better my home that everyone's."

They looked at each other. Edelgard's eyes were hard and her lips thin, just as they had been when she had been emperor. Her ruthlessness was not gone, only tempered. But what if she were wrong? What if they did have enough troops to stop the invaders but they didn't? She would be complicit in a massacre far worse than anything the Ashen Demon had done before. "Claude?"

"I don't know, Teach. It's a brutal thing she's suggesting, but we might only get one chance to stop them." He gripped the edge of the table. "What I wouldn't give for Rhea to wake up so I can ask questions!"

Byleth wiped her brow. "Well, we won't get answers here."

She opened the door to find herself face-to-face with an agitated Seteth. "It's Rhea. She's awake and lucid, though agitated."

"Agitated?"

"She asked me where Shamir of all people was practically the moment she woke up and demanded I send for her immediately, even when I tried to tell her about the attacks and that Shamir had only just returned to the monastery. Then she threw me out."

"That is strange. Catherine was always the Knight she was closest to. Just another thing we need answers about." She looked from Claude to Edelgard. When they had stumbled out of the woods all those years ago, she had no idea that she was meeting the first people she would ever love and the only ones she could imagine trusting with her fears. "Come with me?"

Rhea sat on the balcony as she had so many times before. She said nothing as Byleth approached her. She had gone from weak to skeletal, even more emaciated than when they had rescued her from Enbarr. She held an elaborately carved ivory box in her lap and didn't seem to notice her visitors at all. Part of Byleth screamed that she couldn't be Seiros. Rhea had secrets, but semidivine figures weren't supposed to be so...mortal.

"Rhea?" Byleth tried. "May I speak to you?"

At last she turned to them. "Child. And Claude and Edelgard. You have come with questions. Come, join me out here. The air is sweet and I don't have much time left to enjoy it."

Edelgard remained just inside the room while Byleth and Claude joined Rhea. He knelt beside her. "I'm sorry for disturbing you, but there are questions we need answers to."

"I did promise you answers. And it seems I no longer have any reason to hold anything back." Despite her words, her body was rigid. "Seteth said you face a mysterious army bearing Relics and the Crest of Flames."

"We do. But first: Thales was right, wasn't he? You're Seiros and the Immaculate One?"

"I took those names for a time. I don't think I've really been myself since Zanado. But perhaps I should start at the beginning." Her voice was faint, but it still had the music of a storyteller. "Long ago, the progenitor god, Sothis, came to this world. She worked with the humans to build a civilization that has never seen an equal before or since. She created children from her blood. I was the last and least. For a time, we were all very happy. But then the humans began to war among themselves over territory and other foolish things. The world was nearly destroyed by technology that made javelins of light seem crude. A few who survived fled underground and became Agartha. Mother spent over a hundred years repairing the damage. And then she retired to the Holy Tomb to sleep and restore her strength."

"That's why I always dreamed of her on a throne."

"Indeed. Those of us who remained built a life at Zanado, and we were content. Until Nemesis murdered my mother and stole her blood and bone for the Sword of the Creator. He and his Elites massacred my brothers and sisters and their families until I was the only survivor." Her gaze sought Edelgard. "I too would have died if not for Wilhelm von Hresvelg. Together we sought vengeance on Nemesis and his army. We decided that the world could not afford to fall into such chaos again. So we created the Empire and the Church of Seiros. To protect the handful of my kin who remained, we spread the doctrine that Crests were blessings from the Goddess."

"You made yourself a god and told us to pray to a dead woman!" Edelgard's face was white and she trembled. "You made it all up. Do you know how many children have died, how many people have suffered for the system you put in place? How hard those same people prayed when no one was ever listening?"

"I did the best that I could. It was never supposed to be a lie. I wanted nothing more than to resurrect my mother and make it all true. Fódlan would be at peace once more." Her gaze hardened. "Do not judge me when you too have worked with monsters and lied for the greater good."

"Don't, either of you. None of us have the moral high ground." Claude rubbed his temples. "Do you know what this army is?"

"I...I think it's Nemesis back from the dead."

"Didn't Sei—er, you—kill him?"

"The blood of a literal god ran in his veins. They are difficult to kill. Perhaps only the true Sword of the Creator can destroy him for good." She touched Byleth's hand. "If so, you truly are Fódlan's only hope."

A semidivine being in front of her who had created a religion. Bandits back from the dead. It seemed almost too incredible to be true. "But why me? What am I, really?" When Rhea didn't answer, Byleth seized her shoulder and looked her in the eye. "You promised."

"I wish I hadn't. I suppose it doesn't matter anymore." She took Byleth's free hand in both of hers. "When I killed Nemesis, I recovered my mother's Crest Stone. If that Crest Stone were implanted in a flash vessel without a soul, it would be possible to resurrect her. I did it to bring peace and because I wanted nothing more than to see her again. But I failed. Twelve times over a thousand years. The last vessel was stronger than most and developed something of a personality, so I raised her as a daughter. She fell in love with the captain of the Knights of Seiros. Jeralt."

Byleth felt like she had been punched in the chest. "Mom."

"She became pregnant, but something went wrong. To this day, I don't know if it was because of her nature or one of those cruelties of the world. The child…was stillborn and my daughter was dying. She begged me to take her heart and give it to her daughter so that she would at least have the facsimile of a life. I thought that a vessel born from someone who carried my Crest and my mother's heart might succeed where all other attempts had failed. I did as she asked. I believed the vessel had died in a fire until the very day you walked through the monastery gates."

Byleth staggered backwards. A corpse. She really was just a corpse. Her pulse and her breath were nothing more than a trick. "I'm dead? That's why I don't have a heartbeat."

Footsteps sounded as Edelgard rushed to put her arms around Byleth from behind. "No my darling. You're alive. As alive as I am, no matter what that woman did to you." Byleth felt rather than saw her glare at Rhea. "Did you ever care for her or was she only a pawn in your mad scheme?"

Byleth forced herself to look at Rhea. Rhea didn't look at her. "I tried to, when I knew my plans had failed. Mother, why couldn't you just have come back?"

Byleth convulsed. All those tender strokes of her hair, the words of encouragement, the afternoons taking tea, they were a lie. She had loved Rhea and tore through the Empire to rescue her, but to Rhea she had always been nothing more than a sack of flesh. Maybe that was all she was.

Edelgard spat. "You disgust me. I should have killed you when I had the chance."

"And once again you are a hypocrite! I did what I did for the good of the world. But you, you manipulated Byleth for over half a year." Acid crept into her voice. "I admire you for turning your defeat to your advantage. Even one Crest Stone is a powerful weapon indeed."

Byleth blinked away her stupor and looked at Edlgard. She had lost all color and looked as if she were about to be sick. "It can't be," she whispered. "She can't be the one who found it."

"El?"

"Shamir recovered this from her room in our absence." Rhea opened the box in her lap. Inside was a small Crest Stone, perfectly round and seeming to pulse with life. "These were held in trust by House Blaiddyd. No doubt she took it during the siege."

Edelgard held herself very still and very straight. "I took it because I didn't know what the Agarthans would bring to bear against us. We might have needed the Hegemon."

The room seemed to waver around Byleth. "You promised. You promised me that you would never use that power."

"I'll use any power to keep you and Fódlan safe."

"You lied to me. I trusted you and you lied to me." Just like Rhea. She had made herself vulnerable and allowed herself to love and this was her reward. How they must have laughed at her, the soulless shell aping feelings like a trained parrot. Tears threatened at the corner of her eyes, but she couldn't cry when she had learned how unsafe she was. "I'm going."

Edelgard put a hand on her arm. "My dar—"

"Leave me alone!" Byleth yanked her arm away and ran from the room. Her vision was a haze of red as she ran through the halls. People called out to her, but she didn't hear them. All she could hear was the voice in her head._ Fool. Corpse. Demon._

Demon, yes. She had been the soulless Ashen Demon before, killing all before her without a trace of guilt or heartbreak. That was what the world wanted from her now, to kill the ultimate evil risen from the grave. She could do that. Byleth wiped her eyes. Tears, love, redemption. Those were things that belonged to the human world that she could never be part of. The past few months had been a lovely dream, but now it was time to wake up.

"Teach, you okay?"

Byleth stopped long enough to give Claude a single curt nod. "Saddle up and tell the others we'll be marching double-time. It's time for the vessel to fulfill her purpose."

* * *

Edelgard buried her face in her hands. Once, she had thought her defeat would be her lowest point, and then it was watching Caspar and Ferdinand go to their deaths. But it was this. The figure she had held up as an icon of rebellion against corruption was nothing more than a murderer resurrected by dark magic. Rhea of all people had discovered her theft. Then she had revealed that Byleth was also a resurrected corpse. She had driven Byleth mad. No, they had. In all the times she and Byleth had faced each other on the battlefield, Edelgard had never seen such hatred or pain in her eyes. Because of a deception made for the best of reasons.

She swallowed the burning lump in her throat. There would be time enough to nurse her broken heart later. For now, Nemesis had to be defeated. With any luck, she could find Claude and they could talk to to Byleth together and reassure her that none of this mattered. Edelgard would make whatever apologies she needed to, they would defeat Nemesis, and then they would figure out how to move forward together.

The sound of hoofbeats and flapping wings interrupted her train of thought. Edelgard rushed to the window overlooking the courtyard. The soldiers were on the march. That shouldn't even be possible. Byleth must have mustered them in a great hurry. Edelgard's heart dropped. Byleth had left without her. Worse, soldiers deployed so hastily would be underprepared against such a dangerous foe. They were going to be slaughtered. Because Byleth believed she was only a vessel and not a beloved teacher and friend. Or Edelgard's beloved.

What had she done?

There was a sharp knock on her door. "Edelgard?" Seteth asked.

Edelgard scowled but opened the door. He wasn't the type to give up in the face of the silent treatment, and the sooner she got the inevitable lecture over with, the sooner she could figure out how to fix this. "What do you want?"

"Rhea wants to see you." He frowned, and there was a softness in his expression, almost fatherly, that shouldn't have suited him but somehow did. "I assume it has something to do with why Byleth charged through demanding every available soldier make ready to depart immediately. I've never seen such a wildness in her."

"The Archbishop accusing me of more atrocities will not help. I'd rather not spend precious time being lectured by a hypocrite and a liar."

"So you know the truth of the Church." He sighed. "I suppose we will have to answer someday for our part in such deception, even if it was for a good reason. But Rhea is distraught. She said that she must make things right and that you were the key."

"You'll excuse me if I don't believe a woman who had my room broken into for the sole purpose of turning the woman I love against me."

"Please, she does not have much time." There was a slight but clear note of pleading in his voice. "Are there not things that you wish that you could undo? She said that you were the only one who could save Byleth."

Edelgard thought of Holywell, of Hubert, Dorothea, and Bernadetta and all the others whose blood was on her hands. "I'll give her five minutes. No longer."

"Thank you." He led her up the stairs, but not to Rhea's bedroom, but the rooftop garden. Rhea had had her chair moved to the center, and somehow she managed to look even feebler than she had an previously. She still carried that accursed Crest Stone.

She turned and her eyes brightened a bit when she saw Edelgard. "Good. I still have a chance to undo my mistake. Seteth, leave us, and see that we aren't disturbed for any reason. Any reason."

"Rhea?"

"Go to Flayn and see that she is safe. It will be your responsibilities to carry on the legacy of our people when I am gone. But now I must protect living things that are precious to me and I must do so privately."

"As you wish…my dear sister."

He left and for a moment Edelgard could only stand silent. It occurred to her, briefly, that she could stab Rhea and no one would be able to stop her. But what would be the point now, except venting her hatred and grief when Byleth's life hung in the balance? "What do you want?"

"The same thing you do, to save the life of our dear queen. You know that she isn't in her right mind. She'll only get herself killed as she is and this world will be plunged into a darkness from which there is no hope of deliverance. And it's all my fault."

"We agree on all that. But what do you want me to do?"

"You are Wilhelm's last scion. You have his pride and his courage. He saved me from Nemesis, and we fought a war together. He almost died, and it was in that moment that I realized I loved him. So I turned the very abomination the Elites had perpetrated into an act of love and so saved his life." She raised a hand towards Edelgard. "I know enough to know that your Crest of Flames could only have been forced on you buy the most vile torture. But the Crest you were born with was evil transformed into good by love. I wish for you to do the same."

She held out the Crest Stone in the palm of her hand. "I also know what someone with two Crests can become with a Stone. A Beast of terrible power, power enough to turn the tide of battle and end this thousand-year war for good.

Edelgard quailed. She had always told herself that she would do whatever was necessary, but this…no there had to be some other way. It was only the form of monstrosity, but after all these months it felt like throwing away the very humanity she had fought for. "It would probably kill me, and even if it didn't, I doubt I could change back."

"I know. But it is the last weapon I can think of to defeat Nemesis. Cichol and Cethleann cannot and Macuil and Indech will not. Only you."

It was very cold, suddenly. Her death had stalked her from the moment the Agarthans had dragged her into the dungeons. Every hour since Byleth had spared her, she had expected destiny to end her life and correct the oversight. Even more so once she understood how much she deserved death. But instead, she had lived while friends had died. She had fallen in love and dreamed of a life for herself. Now, she was being asked to undergo the same kind of transformation she had forced on others. To die painfully and be remembered as something less than human.

To save the woman who had saved her.

A chuckle escaped her body despite itself. "So this was my punishment all along. Fitting." She unclasped her cloak from her shoulders. They were such fine clothes she wore, some of them should survive in one piece. A bit of silver gleamed. The cloak fastener. She had thought it was an eagle but closer inspection revealed a falcon. A silver falcon.

"_To save him from death, the knight was transformed into a silver falcon."_

_"The king was still a bad king and the knight resolved to end his tyranny."_

_"What's the point if he dies anyway?"_

Edelgard closed her eyes. "I understand. Give it here before I change my mind."

The stone was warm in her hand. Edelgard spoke the incantation she had been taught in a quiet, clear voice. Warmth became heat and then burning flame. Black ooze traveled up her arm covered her body. Pain like she had never known, even during the experiments, filled her. She fell to her knees. And still she did not cry out. She was going to die, but it would be in a manner worthy of an emperor. The darkness swallowed her. She couldn't breath. Her bones lengthened and contracted, and there was a sharp pain in her back as something sprouted. Even her teeth became longer and sharper.

And then it was over. Edelgard flexed her fingers. Her claws. Black, leathery patches covered deathly pale hands. She stretched out her arms and skeletal wings unfurled. She must seem like a monster out of a storybook, a disgusting creature fit only to be a cautionary tale. "You must be pleased at the irony of me becoming a beast." Even her voice no longer sounded human.

"I would have been, once, but now I only want you to save them all." She looked down. "I'm sorry for not doing anything to save you. You really are Wilhelm's scion. If I have known—well, I suppose it doesn't matter now."

"I suppose not." She swallowed. "And I suppose I should apologize for my part in what you suffered. I don't remember if I ever did."

"You didn't." Rhea coughed. "Now go, last of the Hresvelgs, and save the world."

Edelgard walked to the edge of the garden and leapt onto the railing. The wind carried her up and towards the sun and her last battle.


	19. The Last Miracle

The army of the dead arrived at the gates of Enbarr the morning after Byleth. The rising sun glinted off their black armor. They stretched as far as she could see from the top of the walls. Thousands on thousands of them, three or four times the number from the reports of her scouts. Byleth ran a finger along the edge of the Sword of the Creator and looked around her. The knights of Rowe, Gloucester, and Edmund as well as Claude's personal guard sat in their saddles or perched in snipers' nests, but the exhaustion was plain on their faces. She had been so eager to fulfill her purpose—so desperate to put an end to her existence—that she had rushed toward a battle she had no hope of winning conventionally. And this time, the enemy bore a Relic the equal of hers.

She took a deep breath. Fear had no place in a flesh vessel. She looked at Claude, then at the rest of the Golden Deer and surviving Knights of Seiros. These had always been her most useful weapons, clever and adaptable, even when she wasn't, and wielding powers of their own. She motioned for them to follow her. They did, tired and nervous-looking, as if she was a stranger to them. She led them into the vacant commander's office. They crowded together. "We don't have enough soldiers to beat them in battle, but we have no choice except to win. Suggestions?"

"Well, you can start by giving a better motivational speech than that." Claude reached for her. "You're not okay. Whatever Rhea said, you aren't some kind of flesh golem. Let us help you, Teach."

Byleth turned away. Pain twisted in her chest. It felt like a cruel joke that he cared for her when Rhea had used her and Edelgard had lied. She was an alien, and here they were still trying to bridge the unbridgeable gap. "Then scheme, Master Tactician. Jokes and platitudes about the power of friendship won't defeat Nemesis."

"There's enough of them out there to destroy all of Fódlan" Hilda asked. "You don't think—"

"Yes." Byleth looked again at her sword and the blank space where a Crest Stone would have been. "He was resurrected to destroy the works of Sothis and Seiros. His purpose won't be complete until he destroys everything they built."

"Then we don't give him that chance," Shamir said. "If it's really a matter of the whole continent, then the smart thing to do is to let him take the city and burn it down. I don't know what he is, but I doubt he's immune to fire."

There was a long silence. Byleth could imagine the horrified faces of the rest of them. For all the blood that had been shed during this war, they had been allowed to maintain the illusion that they could keep their own hands clean. She waited for Claude to voice an objection, to come up with a scheme as she had ordered, but he said nothing. None of them had any better plans. Edelgard would laugh to see it. _You were right and I was wrong and now I have no choice but ruthlessness._

She bowed her head. The order stuck in her throat. Why? She was the Ashen Demon, given that name because she burned down a village. There were a half-million people living in Enbarr, but that paled in comparison to the population of Fódlan as a whole. Simple logic demanded that they die. Byleth had nothing but logic left. The nobility she tried for was a lie. But still the words would not come.

_Because you aren't a demon or a vessel or anything else._ The voice in her head sounded like Sothis._ You're a person._

Byleth head snapped up. She wasn't a person. Sothis was gone. She must be going mad.

_Well, that would be an improvement. Only people go mad. Quit your moping. Edelgard would be ashamed of you if she saw you like this. And I was never gone._

"Where have you been?" she whispered. Her eyes burned. All those times she had asked for guidance, Sothis had been right there.

_I wished to protect you. You have felt it, have you not? Our thoughts and memories merging? I fear the more you draw on my power, the more strain you put on your mortal body. Saving the little one nearly cracked the Stone in two. I feared another such display might break it entirely._

So she was the walking dead, just of a different kind. Her natural heart was that of a dead child. One more display of magic, and it would be all she had left.

_I cannot say with certainty what would happen, but yes, that is a reasonable guess. I'm so sorry, my dearest friend. I wanted to save you, but I failed. Time is limited, even for progenitor gods. So I ask you the same question I did once before: what shall you do?_

What did she want to do? Save Fódlan. Atone for the temper tantrum that had led them to this disaster. And even if the only way to stop Nemesis was to destroy Enbarr, she didn't want to die as the Demon. She turned back to Claude and the others. "My students, no my friends. I'm so sorry for leading you into this mess. Which makes what I have to ask even worse." She took a deep breath. "I don't see a way out of burning the city. What we can do is buy the civilians time to evacuate while we battle in the streets. We can't win and we won't survive, but every hour they're killing us is an hour that a thousand people can escape. Anyone who wants to evacuate with them is welcome to do so, but I ask for volunteers."

They all looked at each other. Their hands trembled. They were after all, little more than children forced to grow up too fast by the horrors of war. Claude swallowed. "I've always been one to get the win with as little death as possible. A hundred or a thousand people saved for each one of us? I call that a bargain. Count me in."

"Me too."

"Me too."

Shamir grimaced. It took Byleth a moment to realize that it was supposed to be a smile. "And me. Catherine, wherever she is now, would never let me hear the end of it if I ran."

Byleth closed her eyes. They had chosen to die with her, despite her foolishness. Her only comfort was that that same foolishness had spared Edelgard this fate. She hoped that some day Edelgard would forgive her. "Thank you."

Orders were sent out to requisition every available horse, cart, and ship to help with the evacuation. Boats choked the canal. Crying families streamed into the streets with all the goods they could carry. Some shouted about the end of the world and divine judgment. Byleth watched it all silently. What she wouldn't give to have Fort Merceus rebuilt. A battering ram like the one she had used at Fhirdiad thundered in the distance. It wouldn't be long now.

Byleth turned to the assembled troops. There were far too few of them. They wore the grim, planked looks of people who knew exactly what was about to happen to them. "All forces to the North and Royal districts. The gates are a natural chokepoint. Your objective is to hold them there as long as possible. Nemesis himself leads our foes, and he has the same objective he didn't thousand years ago: the destruction of everything and everyone we hold dear. We must stop him here for their sake. You may think of me as a goddess, but today I am one of you fighting for the life of people that I love. When Nemesis is ashes, we will all be immortals." She raised the Sword of the Creator high. "For Fódlan."

The soldiers didn't cheer, but Claude's smile did reach his eyes. "Now that's what I call a speech."

They readied their weapons. Ashe took up a position at one of the onager. Those who remained on the walls hurled down missiles and arrows. All while the battering ram thundered. Wood splintered, and then the vanguard of the dead broke through.

And they were dead men. Their skin was pale and lifeless beyond even the likes of Solon and Thales. Unhealed wounds slashed across their exposed skin. They didn't shout as they massed through the gate nor did they cry out in pain as Byleth cut them down. Their eyes were dull. She would have called them unseeing if their parries hadn't been so quick.

The knight loomed above the infantry. Wisps of red hair clung to his skull. The sigil of Gautier was burned into his armor and he carried a copy of the Lance of Ruin. He slashed through the armor of one of the surviving Bergliez axemen as if it were butter. Byleth tightened her grip on her sword. She had been warned that some of the dead carried copies of Relics but this was Gautier risen from the dead, the red glow in his sockets visible even at this distance.

Claude's eyes widened. "I can't possibly be seeing what I think I'm seeing. Can I?"

Byleth cleaved one of the dead swordmasters' head from its shoulders. "I think we are."

A voice boomed. "How do you like my army? I won't stop until I've picked this garbage heap of a city to the bone and pissed on Wilhelm's corpse. Cowardly little traitor!"

In the midst of the sea of black, there was suddenly another rider. He was large and muscular despite his white beard. His eyes glowed as well and he held the Sword of the Creator, polished like black onyx. "If you give me a good fight, I'll kill you quickly. Run like the rest of them and I'll make it last for a while." Nemesis laughed. "Of course, you've got to get through my minions first. Fraldarius, Charon, attack!"

Byleth didn't know how long the assault continued, only that for every corpse she hacked to pieces to more, took their place. She had grown accustomed to decimating entire armies with only the Sword of the Creator, but she had never imagined such a power turned on her. Nemesis was relentless, cutting down her men as easily as she swatted flies. But for all his power, she and her friends still had Relics of their own.

Claude rose into the air atop his wyvern and drew back Failnaught as he aimed for Nemesis' heart. The arrow struck true, but a bubble of magical energy shimmered. The arrow slowed, grazing Nemesis' chest and leaving a thin trail of black ooze in its wake.

"Idiots! I've got serious magic protecting me. It'll take more than one measly arrow to take me down."

Charon stumbled and an identical black streak appeared on its chest. Claude circled around. "Fall back to the onager. I've got an idea."

Byleth did as he asked. She had seen the streets of Enbarr filled with the dead and dying and churches and theaters that had stood for a thousand years smoking or ruined, but this was so much worse than the battle against Edelgard. She had had a firm destination and there been hope that most of the beauty and culture would survive, that she had a future. Now there was only a slog with fire and death at the end of it.

She reached the onager. Ashe was covered in sweat and dirt, but otherwise unharmed. He motioned for soldiers to bring more stones. "We've felled a lot of them so far. I hope it's doing some good. These things are worse than ghosts."

"Don't lose heart yet." Claude dodged a blast of fire from Gloucester. "Did you notice that when we tried to hurt Nemesis, it hit the Elites? I'm betting they're linked somehow. Maybe he's using them as a shield? Failnaught hurt Charon a lot more than it hurt him. If we were to destroy the Elites, that shield might go down."

And killing them would destroy the most potent weapons his army had. "Wouldn't it be nice if killing him was all we had to do."

He shrugged. "A little too storybook for my taste, but I could use a miracle right about now. Eh, at least it'll buy the civilians more time."

A skeletal wyvern hovered above. Ashe squinted and dropped his hand. A volley of stones flew toward beast and rider. The rider pulled on the reins and made a turn no living beast could ever manage. The largest of the stones grazed it. It wobbled in the sky before righting itself and made straight for Ashe. Byleth whipped out the Sword of the Creator and threw out the blade in an arc, but the thing was too fast. The rider raised dark copy of Crusher and—

A cry like that of a screaming eagle loud enough to shake the intact buildings and rattle Byleth's teeth sounded in the air as a black and white blur slammed into the Elite. He and his mount went sailing to the ground. The blur seized on it, ripping through armor as if it were nothing with its great claws. It was then that Byleth realized that it wasn't a blur. It wasn't an "it" at all. Skeletal wings erupted from her back, her clothes had merged into a black, indistinct mass, and there were growths like rotting flesh on her face, but Byleth would know that white hair anywhere. Tears formed at the corner of her eyes and she had no will or strength to stop them. "El."

Edelgard reared onto her legs and met Byleth's gaze. Her eyes glowed red like Nemesis' but a faint smile twisted across her misshapen lips. "It seems I got here just in time." She reached a claw towards Byleth's cheek. "I'm sorry that I lied to you. And sorry that you have to see me like this."

"I'm the one who should be sorry. I took all my anger out on you and you didn't deserve it. And now you're..." Byleth gestured feebly. Words failed her. "…that."

"I'm myself. Edelgard von Hresvelg, who will do whatever it takes to free humanity from darkness and save the people that I love."

Ashe approached her. "Well, whatever you are, thank you for saving my life." He stood on tiptoe to hug her around the midsection. "If I have to die here, then I'm glad it's with you."

Edelgard patted him gingerly on the shoulders. "Die? You're not fighting as if you're suicidal." Recognition dawned across her face. "Our objective is to hold the line."

"It was. Save as many people as we could before burning the city down," Claude said. "Of course that was before we got our own magic-hurling Hegemon." He turned to Byleth. "With Edelgard on our side, we might be able to destroy the rest of the Elites and Nemesis."

"And what?" Edelgard's voice was booming and distorted, but annoyance shone through. "They'll just conveniently turn into little piles of ash?"

"We'd already agreed to try before you came." Byleth put her hands in one of Edelgard's. The growths were rough and sharp and made Byleth's skin crawl to touch them, but they were warm and they were Edelgard's. "Now that you're here, I'd like to try to see tomorrow."

"Ever the optimist, my darling. Let's go to work."

"Do you hear that?" Byleth shouted. "We have hope now. Fight not just for your families but to see them again when this war is done."

"Yes, Your Majesty!" replied an archer. "Where did you find the Beast?"

"I am not a Beast. But I have power like Nemesis has never seen." Edelgard rose into the air. Fire spewed from her hands and mouth, reducing a line of dead to ash. It galvanized the living as nothing else could. Byleth's Deer and their soldiers dived back into the fray, no longer the condemned but heroes fighting an impossible battle out of legend as they had so many times before. Every black-armored skeleton that they cut down was no longer delaying the inevitable, but a step on the arduous road toward Nemesis and victory.

Byleth made a turn into the central square. Some mages were making a stand near the opera house, throwing magic this way and that until the sky was a riot of colors. A mounted archer bearing the sigil of Riegan sat opposite, firing back with the dark Failnaught. Byleth smiled despite herself. Claude had always hated cross-training with melee weapons, but even aRelic bow was no match for skilled swordsmen determined to close the distance. She dashed forward and leapt into the air, the Sword of the Creator glowing in her hands. She crashed down on Failnaught as Riegan futilely tried to aim. It was the first time she had been so close to one of the Elites. Riegan's eyes glowed red, but there was nothing behind the gaze. He was as mindless as the rest of his troops. He didn't even flinch as she decapitated him.

Two down. Eight to go. Except perhaps not. Byleth took in deep, gulping breaths and braced herself against the opera house's façade. The Elites were just mindless puppets. But mindless puppets merely hung limp on their strings without a puppetmaster. Nemesis, brutish as he was, had a will of his own. They had assumed that they would have to kill the Elites before being able to hurt Nemesis, but what if that was the other way around? What if destroying him would leave the whole horde impotent? They had managed to wound Nemesis, however slightly, even with his magical shield. There were two less dead to power it. If they could bring enough strength to bear...

"Mages, send up the rallying sign! All commanders to meet here."

One of the mages nodded and sent a golden light into the sky. The Crest of Flames hovered above the opera house. It was showy magic, unsuitable at any other time, but she had no banners to unfurl. She could only hope that her students would come, that enough of them were still alive amidst the chaos.

They arrived one by one, bleeding and sweat-stained. Lysithia with Thyrsus, Claude with Failnaught, Hilda with Freikugal, even Lorenz with the Axe of Ukonvasara. Others came with magical weapons retrieved from the corpses of marauding Beasts. And last of all was Edelgard, her wings unfurled as it to shield the others. Byleth exhaled. For all the death and destruction of this day she hadn't lost more people she loved. They might be able to pull off one last miracle and bring them all home again. "I have an idea..."

She told them what she had and hadn't seen when she destroyed Riegan. Claude stroked his chin. "It could work. I mean, it's risky, but we couldn't have gotten as far as we have without risk." He smiled. "Also, we're down to five Elites. I was able to finish off Charon and Goneril, and Daphnel had an encounter with our favorite Hegemon. You know, I am really glad didn't pull that the last time we were in Enbarr."

Edelgard gritted her teeth, revealing fangs and Byleth winced inwardly. Even if they somehow pull this off, she had no idea how to turn Edelgard back into a human or if it could be done. It seemed stupidly, pointlessly cruel when it was Byleth who had been a fool and Edelgard who had provided their ray of hope. "So all we have to do is get to Nemesis and hope that we have enough strength to bring him down."

"If I were an extremely angry resurrected bandit in the city built by my two greatest enemies, where would I want to destroy first?"

Byleth and Edelgard looked at each other. "The palace," Edelgard said. "Built by none other than Grand Emperor Wilhelm."

It was one thing to have a destination, another to get there. The Imperial District was in better shape than the North, but not by much. Calvary led by Gloucester and Gautier had broken through the line, and were busy setting mansions ablaze. On the crest of the highest hill in the city stood the Imperial Palace, outwardly unchanged from when Byleth had stormed it almost eight months ago. A knot of black curled at the gates, Nemesis' standard fluttering in the breeze.

Pain crossed Edelgard's face. "Everything I have left of my father and my siblings is there. Bastards."

Byleth put a hand on her. "We'll stop them. It's not an easy place to take, remember?" She turned back to the others. "Take it slow. No unnecessary risks. I'm going to need all of you to defeat Nemesis."

She took a deep breath, and they began the final push. Byleth heard everything, felt everything. Metal struck bone. Sweat trickled down her face. Magic hissed by her ear. Gloucester aimed a bolt of white light as Ignatz aimed for at a pegasus knight. Byleth tensed. The pain in her chest reminded her that she couldn't counter with magic of her own. She broke formation and took a running leap at Ignatz. He and she tumbled to the cobblestones as the magic sailed overhead.

"Tch. Captain Jeralt would've had your head for that. Why didn't you use magic? I guess he really did train me better." There was the hiss of an arrow and a satisfying thud as something heavy and armored fell to the ground. Byleth picked herself up and spared the briefest glance to confirm Gloucester's end. Only four Elites left.

"Thanks." Ignatz adjusted his glasses. "I feel like I should return the favor." Wind swirled around him. The gust moved faster than any arrow before slamming into Gautier's chest and knocking him from his mount to be crushed by the horde. Three.

They pushed, onward and upward towards the palace. The walls were broken in places from magic or projectiles. The fountains, so lovely that she had noticed them in the midst of battle, were cracked and dry, and the gardens were showing clear signs of neglect even during this uneventful winter. This wasn't just the damage of today's battle. Byleth had won Enbarr and claimed the crown of Adrestia and then forgot about it in the wake of more pressing issues. Edelgard frowned, and Byleth did the best she could to take her hand._ I swear that if I live I will rebuild._

The interior of the palace was much as she remembered. Stained-glass images of Wilhelm, Seiros and the Four Saints looked down on them. The palace guard was engaged in furious battle with Nemesis, Lamine, and Fraldarius. The Elites were as expressionless as their fellows, but Nemesis smiled. He swung his Sword of the Creator almost absently, toying with the soldiers before he cut them down.

He ran through one of the guards before turning to face Byleth. His gaze fell on her sword and his eyes widened a bit. "So, you managed to get my sword from that crazy Seiros. I have no idea how you got Sothis' blood, but it won't do you any good. Thief."

Edelgard hmphed. "You're one to talk. To think I once admired you as a liberator. Leave now, or I'll put you right back to the grave."

"What the blazes are you? One of those Nabateans? No, you're too small and ugly for that. And a bunch of cowards. I bet none of you have the guts to fight me one-on-one."

Claude readied Failnaught. "Guts are so overrated. I prefer pragmatism."

"Weaklings. Just for that, I'll put your heads on pikes after I'm done with you. Blaiddyd!"

A form appeared in the doorway separating the antechamber from the throne room proper. In life, Blaiddyd must have been a giant of a man, taller and more muscular than even Dimitri. He hefted Areadbhar in one hand. Nemesis nodded and jerked his head toward Claude. "Kill them. Start with the mouthy one."

Fraldarius was the first to charge, sword and shield in hand. Claude stepped around, ducking behind Hilda. She brought Freikugel down on the shield. White sparks flew as Relic hit Relic. Fraldarius left the smallest gap in her torso exposed. Byleth took the chance. She ducked under the combatants and stabbed Fraldarius. Fraldarius staggered backwards and so did Nemesis. A black streak appeared on his chest, deeper than the one before. Byleth and Claude had been right.

"Heh, you're smarter than most, I'll give you that. But that sword of yours can't do more than that as long as my minions are still around. And I've still got two." He lashed the sword towards Edelgard. She drew back, but not quite quickly enough as the blade drew a thin line of ooze and blood.

Byleth fell back to her. "El?"

"Don't tell me you're sweet on the dragon? You're as bad as Wilhelm. Always going on about true love. No stomach for a real fight."

Edelgard rose to her full, impressive height. "That's the difference between us. You have minions, and we have friends and loved ones we will fight and die for."

A smirk spread across Claude's face. "I had a somewhat longer speech planned, but she covered the gist of it. Attack."

Byleth aimed for Nemesis' neck. The shield of energy flickered, but held, shifting around and over the Sword of the Creator as if it were submerged in water. Lysithea summoned black tentacles of energy that even erupted from the ground and pierced Nemesis' armored boots. The shield shimmered, fainter, and Nemesis grunted in pain. "It's working!" Byleth shouted. "Don't let up."

Claude let fly an arrow. Lorenz muttered something under his breath, and the arrow was alight with magical flame. It hit Nemesis flush in the chest. His shield was very faint, like gossamer. Edelgard stretched forth her claws and opened her mouth. Purple flame spewed forth and the shield broke. Nemesis looked down in disbelief and slashed wildly at her. Byleth met his blade with her own. Back and forth they went, parrying and riptosing until Byleth's arms ached with the effort.

"As dramatic as this is, I'm not willing to leave the fate of Fódlan to a mere duel." Edelgard swiped at Nemesis with her good claw.. He parried, but he left an opening just as Fraldarius had. Byleth slashed at his chest once more, and this time the blow connected. Black blood spewed forth from the wound as a white light radiated out from his heart.

Not just his heart. Blaiddyd's and Lamine's too, their armor and robes crumbling as it spread. Byleth sank to her knees. They had won. Against all odds, the war was over and they had survived and won.

The light was almost to Nemesis' head. "Maybe I can't win, but I can still get my revenge." He inclined his head ever so slightly. There was nothing left of Blaiddyd but the arm holding Areadbhar. He pulled back in a final, jerky motion and threw.

Time slowed to a crawl. The lance pierced Edelgard's chest. She roared and stumbled, yanking at the haft. Only a flesh wound, like in those operas where the dastardly villain tried and failed one last time to kill the hero. But then Edelgard sank to her knees and crumpled on the ground. Byleth waited for her to rise again, for the husk to dissipate. But Edelgard lay there, unmoving and whimpering in pain.

No. They had won. She would not permit such a cruel, pointless ending. Time froze and a purple haze settled over the room. She merely had to reverse time and block the lance and everything would be as it should. She closed her eyes and began.

Time refused to budge.

_I'm sorry,_ Sothis said. _This is fate. A cruel fate, but fate nonetheless._

Tears streamed down Byleth's face. To the flames with fate and with goddesses too if this was the result. What good was trying to be a better person if you ended up right back where you started? Eight months only for Edelgard to be bleeding out in the throne room anyway. All she had accomplished was more death and a broken heart. For what? Byleth to have a temper tantrum?

A broken heart. One last magical spell would shatter the Crest Stone. She had brought Ingrid back from the brink of death. She could do so for Edelgard.

_You truly wish to die for her? My, you must love her._

"I do." But it didn't feel like the tales of chivalry. There was a quiet, calm filling in her chest where before there had been only rage and grief. She wanted Edelgard to heal and thrive even if she wasn't there to see it and she had the power to make it happen.

Time began again and Byleth rushed to Edelgard's side. Her breathing was shallow, and her red eyes were glazed with pain. She turned her head towards Byleth. "I'm sorry, my darling."

"None of that."

Her laugh was a rattle. "I always knew that your path lay across my grave. You must find the courage to walk it."

"We forge our own paths," Byleth said and kissed her. Power flowed from her to Edelgard and she was dimly aware of the husk crumbling beneath her. The pain in her chest was like molten metal. Her ribs felt as if they were cracking in two. Her students shouted, but they seemed very far away. Edelgard's lips warmed under her and her breathing steadied.

Byleth collapsed on top of her. The pain in her chest grew and Byleth wished and waited for the inevitable. Oblivion would be a relief at this rate. Something thudded where the Crest Stone sat in her chest. Had set.

"Goddess,"Ignatz whispered. "Look at her hair."

Her hair? Why did they care about her hair right now? Was this some sort of bizarre afterlife for failed vessels?

_No. The Crest Stone is gone, but you are still here. I think...I think that your heart is beating. You've grown yourself a soul._

How did someone grow a soul? It wasn't as if merchants sold seeds.

_You loved. You loved someone so much that you gave your life for them. There's nothing more human than that. Now, wake up before the little ones decide that you are dead._

Byleth's eyes snapped open and she found herself face to face with Edelgard's lilac, human eyes. Her skin had the same unnatural pallor and the growths clung to her cheeks, but she was human and alive. "Byleth?" she rasped and touched her hair. "How? How are we alive? And your eyes..."

A few strands of hair fell in Byleth's face. Dark blue hair. She was human. "I'll explain it to you later. It'll probably take a while." She smiled, and her cheeks ached from the effort. "We have the rest of our lives."


	20. Epilogue

"Your Majesty!" Count Gloucester's face was white with rage. "You must speak with that artist of yours about his coronation gift."

Byleth barely resisted rubbing her temples and leaned back in her throne. She would never grow used to all the pomp that her position required. Nemesis had been destroyed over a month ago, and she had been de facto queen for even longer than that, but the nobles still required a formal coronation so they could curry favor and show off their clothes yet again. Retinues from all corners of Fódlan had been arriving at the monastery for days now, and the tide showed no signs of slowing. She told herself it was important to celebrate and take the opportunity to forge a sense of unity for her fledgling nation.

Leave it to Gloucester to be infuriated about a blasted painting. "Ignatz hasn't even let me see it yet. How did you manage?"

He had the good grace look a bit sheepish. "One of my men may have visited his studio when he wasn't there. Only for the briefest of moments, you understand." The anger returned. "He dared to put that woman alongside you and Prince Claude as if you were equals. As if she were a hero."

Byleth didn't need to ask who he would referring to. "Lady Edelgard saved the lives of every man, woman, and child on the continent and shall bear the scars from it for the rest of her life. I'd say that qualifies as heroism."

"But after all she's done…"

"Did she murder the uncle of one of my dear students and the parents of two more?" She lowered her voice barely above a whisper. "I haven't made a full investigation of those deaths because getting rid of you is more trouble than it's worth. I suggest that you do nothing to alter that calculation."

He flinched as if she had waived the Sword of the Creator in his face. "Of course, Your Majesty. With your permission, I'll take my leave."

He left, and Byleth exhaled. The sooner this coronation was over, the sooner she could get back to the parts of ruling that were actually important. Reconstruction in Goneril and in Enbarr was proceeding apace, but there were still thousands of refugees who she needed to find new homes for. Lorenz had proposed a hundred amendments and extensions to her reforms that she needed to review. There were rumors of an entire underground village beneath the monastery and...

"Byleth?"

Edelgard's voice snapped Byleth from her reverie. Edelgard stood before the throne as if she had materialized from the air. Sometimes, Byleth wondered if she was in fact an unearthly creature tethered to this world by Byleth's own desperate desire. Her time as Hegemon had left its mark on her. Her skin was white like milk, and the growths on her cheeks and veins around her eyes showed no signs of fading. The woman who had cheated death and was transformed into a walking corpse, said campfire gossip. Byleth put a hand to her chest. Because of Edelgard, her own heart beat.

She stood and offered a hand to Edelgard. Edelgard came to her and let Byleth enfold her in a hug. Men like Gloucester knew nothing. They didn't care how warm Edelgard was or the way her eyes glittered when Byleth practiced telling jokes. They knew nothing of finding peace after so much bloodshed. "How much did you overhear?" she murmured against the crown of Edelgard's head.

"Enough." She pulled back so they could look at each other. "He lived in terror of me for five years, and nothing I do will erase that. We should probably be more discreet than we are before people complain about more than Ignatz's paintings."

"To the flames with discretion." She traced the largest of the growths on Edelgard's face, following the line of her cheekbone across the rough and jagged husk. "You've earned the right to stand by my side openly and I won't treat you like some dirty secret. Gautier and Gloucester should be glad that I don't make them get on their knees to you for all you've done."

Edelgard glanced down. She would have been blushing if she had been able. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. There's still so much more to be done."

"Indeed." It would be the work of a decade or more to rebuild Fódlan and train up the first nobles of merit. For half of each year, Edelgard would be with Ashe and Lysithea while Byleth made circuits of the kingdom. She dreaded that time of absence with all the fear her newly-wakened heart could muster. "But on the very day that work is done..."

She kissed Edelgard. Her mouth was misshapen, but still warm and soft. Byleth was slow, thorough, pulling little gasps from Edelgard with each brush of her lips. Edelgard pulled her close and held her as if she would never let her go.

They stood like that and until Byleth's arms were sore and her lungs desperate for breath. When at last they pulled back, Edelgard's hair was mussed and they were both breathing hard. Both smiling. "When our work is done, I'll come to you and I won't leave again unless you ask me."

"Are you telling me a decade in advance that you plan to propose? How very forward of you, my darling." Edelgard stood on tiptoe to smooth Byleth's hair. Light danced in her eyes. "Lucky for you that I doubt my answer will change between now and then."

Heat spread across Byleth's cheeks. "Should I do it now? I'm not really sure of the etiquette on this." She reached into her pocket and pulled out her mother's ring. The gemstones caught the light of the audience chamber and glistened as if they were stars. "Dad told me to give it to the person I wanted to spend my life with. That's you. It always has been and always will be."

Edelgard stared at the ring, her mouth half-open. "N-no. I didn't mean you should propose. The Queen of Fódlan can't marry the Flame Emperor. There would be a civil war before the words left your mouth." Her voice was pained.

"Can Byleth Eisner marry Edelgard von Hresvelg?" She closed her eyes. They would have to be careful while the crown rested her on her head, but they had also endured so much since Byleth had pulled her to her feet in the throne room. It was foolish to speak of what they deserved, but she would take all the happiness she could.

Byleth opened her eyes once more. "I meant what I said. You've earned the right to stand by my side openly. I won't make them bow to you as my consort, but you are the woman I love and I will marry you on the very day I abdicate if you'll allow it." She knelt and held out the ring. "Will you take this as a promise of that day, El, and let me share my life with you in whatever way that I can?"

Edelgard's right hand covered her mouth as tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She nodded once, so small that Byleth almost thought she had imagined it, and extended her left hand. Byleth's own hands trembled as she slipped the ring onto her finger.

Edelgard pulled Byleth to her feet and they were both crying, even though Byleth didn't know why. Edelgard wiped her eyes and wrapped her arms around Byleth. "Proposed to in the middle of the afternoon in the audience chamber. I never could have imagined it."

"I can do it over. Dinner by candelight, a walk in the woods, a visit to the Goddess Tower.."

"No, my darling." She pecked Byleth on the lips. "I mean that even in my schoolgirl fantasies, it was all passionate declarations and sweeping gestures. I never imagined having a future, let alone building a life with you."

"Oh." Byleth hadn't imagined this either. They were supposed to be mortal enemies, the chosen of the Goddess and the heretical emperor. They should have died in the throne room at Enbarr. But they had defied destiny and legacy to become two not-so-very-ordinary women. They were free, and it was a greater miracle than anything Byleth had managed when she wielded Sothis' power. "I think it'll be a pretty nice life." She gave Edelgard a last squeeze. "I have been meaning to get to, but tonight I should romance you properly. All the wine and the things I'm supposed to do now."

"When have either of us done what we were supposed to?" Edelgard threaded their fingers together, but didn't meet Byleth's eyes. "I…if we are truly engaged... that is perhaps you would care to join me in my quarters when you're ready to retire?"

Byleth swallowed. A lifetime of ribald stories from the Blade Breakers and a year of minding and treating amorous teenagers hadn't prepared her for the thought of being with Edelgard. Truly being with her. "I'm afraid I'll disappoint you but if it's truly what you want, yes. Oh yes."

"I don't think you can disappoint me." Her smile made her look softer and younger, almost shy. "We should leave before prying eyes wonder what happened to their queen. May I walk with you?"

"Always."

Edelgard moved to remove the ring, but Byleth put a hand over hers. "Anyone who knows what that ring means already knows about us. And even if they didn't, I won't hide you away."

They walked together in silence. The guards and monks Seteth had set the task of helping him rebuild the church nodded or gave perfunctory bows as they passed. Some glared at Edelgard, but if they recognized the significance of the ring on her left hand, they gave no sign. Even though guests were pouring in from as far away as Dagda and Almyra, the upper floors of the monastery were quiet, as if the whole building was morning the woman who had created it and all the rest who had died to put an end to the darkness. The public funeral of Archbishop Rhea had been attended by thousands. Only a dozen had watched Byleth inter her beside her siblings and place the inert Sword of the Creator on the throne where it belonged. She still didn't know how she felt about the woman she had wanted so badly to be her surrogate mother. Maybe she never would.

One door had been left open, and Byleth caught a flash of red out of the corner of her eye and stopped. This room was normally used for storage of artifacts and old documents, but for now it was dominated by an easel with a painting on it. This must be the coronation gift that had had Gloucester almost apoplectic. She ducked inside.

Edelgard crossed her arms. "You can wait a few more days, can't you? If Ignatz had wanted you to see it before the coronation, he would have shown you."

"You're curious too. Admit it."

"I'm marrying the most impulsive and curious woman in Fódlan." Edelgard smiled as she said it and joined Byleth.

The painting was done in the same style as the murals depicting the seasons that dotted the monastery. It was a group portrait. Of them. Byleth, Claude, Edelgard, everyone who had fought in this war from the day she had awoken to the final battle in Enbarr. She saw the orange of Ferdinand's hair and the blue of Caspar's eyes, and a lump formed in her throat. Byleth wore the eagle crown Edelgard had bestowed on her and the furred cloaks of the rulers of Faerghus and held a staff topped with a golden stag. Edelgard was as she was now, pale and in her familiar black and red, looking as regal as ever.

It was only when she looked closer that she saw the titles. Ignatz had woven golden letters around each figure. _King of Unification. Noble of the Red Rose. Stalwart Knight._ She almost feared to look for her own. She had been the Ashen Demon, the murderer who deserved none of the good things she had received. And then she had been the Enlightened One, Sothis come again, except that it was all a lie. Who was she now?

It was Edelgard who saw it first. "Dawn Queen. It suits you. You managed to lead Fódlan into its new dawn. And you've given me a reason to look forward to the dawn instead of fearing that each new day would be the one where I lost everything."

Byleth didn't trust herself to reply to that directly so she forced down the burning in her throat. "Do you want me to find yours?"

Edelgard shrugged. "I don't see how it could be anything but Flame Emperor, but then again you're the one crowned, not me. I'm curious."

It didn't take Byleth long to find what she sought. "Breaker of Fate." She looked at Edelgard, her lips parted in surprise and pleasure. Her love. Her _fiancée._ The woman who had taken the stony heart of a demon and given her a heart of flesh. "I can't think of anything that suits you more."


End file.
